Sacred Fist
by DeviantWriter2015
Summary: Self vs. Self 3. While Marie and Lee finally get the boyfriends they wanted, May, at 25, finally gives up on Ed. She turns to VR to fill the void. There's only one problem: She can't get back out! Death in the game meets death means death in real life. And May meets an unlikely ally when her life bar is at critical. STORY COMPLETE
1. Memories

Sacred Fist

AN: I have four computers in various states of function. My "new" Dell was the one I was making fan fiction on and my "old" Dell is for serious writing. A few months ago, my "new" Dell decided it didn't feel like having some of the keys work, namely "B" and "N". So "old" Dell for fan fiction too. Shit.

Memories

[1]

When the door opened, it was the assholes. All three of them.

No, they weren't assholes. Just idiots. Men were stupid, just like their mama said they were. Except they weren't even men. They were just boys. What did they know about liking girls?

And when she saw them looking in, her eyes went to the big one. Damn, if he wasn't handsome. He looked pretty sorry about the whole thing. All of them did. But all the good looks and sorryness in the world weren't going to keep her temper in check.

"Haven't you done enough damage?!" May shouted, and they cringed.

Double D spoke up: "If you'll just let us apologize—" His voice was as quiet as a mouse. It was almost funny.

"Get out!" she shouted, "And never come back!"

[2]

But all that aside, that summer had been grand. May had always liked summer. People called her stupid—her sisters more than anyone—but she was actually okay in school. But summer had been freedom. And _that _summer, when they met the Eds for the first time, had been one of the best.

Their mama was always pulling double shifts at the factory, coming in after 10, going right to bed, waking up at 6 just to do it all over again.

Yeah, sometimes she spent days away from home, off to visit some boyfriend, which meant Lee had to make sure all the bills were paid.

But there had been Matlock marathons, and stealing smokes and beers from the gas station. Thre had been the warm nights when they slept outside. There had been their neighbor's kites to fly. There had been bonfires and s'mores.

There had been the fireworks they stole from that jock kid with the bike. They just went into the woods and Lee lit them off and actually made a tree catch on fire. Instead of doing anything about it or telling someone, they just ran back home, screaming and swearing and giggling. May had gone to bed, but she couldn't sleep, so damn afraid that a cop would knock on the door and ask for Lee. Her sister was a bitch, but May didn't want her to go to jail. The thought of being cooped up in the same trailer with just Marie and no one to rein her in almost made May cry.

They had chased the Eds all over the place, kissing them, knowing it wasn't right but doing it anyway. They terrorized the kids in the cul-de-sac, knowing it wasn't right but doing it anyway. But they were just kids.

And one day, in August, May was sitting in front of the TV, crying. She didn't really know why, not at first.

Marie and Lee had been arguing in the kitchen about what to cook. Then they heard her and came in.

"The fuck is your problem?" Marie asked, and Lee shoved her into the front door.

"Watch your mouth." Lee said. She turned to May. "What are you being a baby about? Did Matlock go off?"

"I want Big Ed." May said.

Lee cocked her head back and laughed. "That's it? We had them here yesterday, May."

Marie got up. "She's so dumb that she already forgot."

May flipped her the bird, and Lee was on top of her in a flash. She grabbed Lee's middle finger and bent it back.

"Damn! Stop it, Lee!" May cried, more tears were coming out. She hated that.

"No flipping birds that ain't cooking on the stove, dummy. You know mama's rules. And we had our boyfriends here just the other day."

"We tied them up and played footsies with them!" May shouted. "Again! I want to go on a date with Ed. A real damn date!"

Marie was cracking her neck. "Well, too bad, dummy. They think we're freaks. Nothing but trailer park trash."

May stood up. "That ain't what they think!"

Marie stepped up to her and knocked her to the ground. "Is too!"

"It ain't!" May kicked Marie's legs out from under her. Then they were brawling on the floor.

Lee snatched them both up by the neck. Even back then, she was so much stronger than them. But they weren't worried about her. May and Marie were still taking swipes at each other. They stopped when Lee brought their heads together. Then they were just sprawled out on the floor.

"Now, girls," Lee said, "You listen to me. I like them too. I like teasing them. I like messing with them. "They're going to be ours. Don't worry about it."

Marie was sitting up. "Bullshit."

Lee kicked her back to the ground. "I don't think so." she said. "You guys haven't noticed?"

"Noticed what?" May asked, sniffling.

Lee took a brush out from somewhere and was brushing her hair. "They say they don't like us. They _act_ like they don't like us. But somehow, someway, they always manage to wander their cute little asses over this way."

"Don't swear, Lee." Marie said sarcastically, and Lee bounced the brush off her head.

"_Ass _isn't a swear word." Lee said, matter-of-factly. "Shut up and listen. Remember the day before the Fourth?"

"Yeah, mom was so drunk, she threw up all over the couch." May said.

Lee clutched the sides of her head. "How is I'm the only one who's ever been held back?"

Marie opened her mouth to answer. Lee bent down and pinched her lips shut.

"Mhmh hmhgm hmjhhsgm!"

Lee grinned. "Much better. That's a good look for you, Marie. You should wear it more often."

Marie gave Lee a death glare.

May was giggling too, but she stopped when her sister looked at her again.

"Do you remember what I'm talking about?"

"Sorry, Lee."

"Let me help you out, May." Lee said. She made her voice high and squeaky. "Oh no, girls! We're being abducted!"

May blushed. "Yeah, that was pretty dumb."

"Yeah it was. But you know what's dumber? Those stooges getting caught in a clothesline."

"That's because they were trying to take a picture of us for…" May couldn't remember.

"It was for some stupid calendar so they could sell it to their so-called friends." Lee said. "But why would you go to a place you don't like to take pictures of people you _don't_ _like_? They could have taken a picture of _anyone _in this dump. They chose us."

"Oh." May could see what Lee was talking about.

"But wait…there's more!" Lee was smirking now. "They keep playing in the town dump when they know we hang out there too. Nobody else even goes there. They keep fighting us for that dumb treehouse instead of building another one any place else. And they keep letting us kiss them."

May was confused. "What? No they don't."

"Marie's boyfriend came up to us and asked us for a cup of sugar. I mean, really? Seriously?! I think our two boyfriends put him up to it, but instead of watching it from far away, the two of them were just hiding behind a car _right next _to us. And they were giggling so loud we found them right away. Then there was the time they made that boat you wrecked with that hairpin."

May giggled. "Yeah, we had them cornered on our boat."

Lee shook her head. "No, we didn't."

"What?"

"Didn't you play that game on Cartoon Network? All three of those bozos can _swim. _My guy is the fastest. Your guy can hold his breath the longest. Marie's guy is somewhere in the middle."

May was so confused. "They can swim? But…we…can't…"

Marie was punching Lee's arm, trying to get it to let go. Lee didn't even seem to notice.

"I know. They _didn't_ know, but they didn't even _try_. You know what I think, baby sister?"

Lee smiled. It was a real smile. It made May smile. "I think they like us just fine."

[3]

But the summer carried on, then went to fall, then winter and spring and back to summer. And the whole time, it seemed like none of them were any closer to getting what they wanted. They were older. They were all 13, except for Lee, who was 14. They were older, that was it.

Then the wimpy kid with the weird braces, Dutch, bumped into them and told them the Eds had run away after a scam went really bad. May and her sisters followed them and snatched up their chasers one by one.

The jock with the bike had been the funniest. Marie had just dressed up like Eddy and baited him into racing that bike around a tree. Lee had been waiting for him, stuck out a single, lean arm, and clotheslined him. The bike had smashed into a tree, completely totaled.

"The actual fuck." he'd said, rubbing his head and slowly starting to stand up. He turned and saw the sisters.

"What the hell is this?" the jock said. "What's going on?"

"I'mma break your butt." was all Lee said.

The country bumpkin from out of the country didn't have any information for him. But the beauty queen and the jock and said said Eddy had been going to find his brother.

"I wonder if he's as cute as Eddy." Lee had said.

"You're such a slut." Marie said.

Lee threw the jock boy at her.

[4]

"Just for old time's sake." the smooth, deep voice said, "Let's play _uncle_."

"Uncle?" Eddy asked quietly. His brother had him by the collar, and Eddy's feet dangled two feet off the ground. They looked so similar. There was no way they _couldn't _be related.

May stood with her sisters. She kept smiling. She wrestled with her sisters all the time. Lee usually won, even when Marie and May ganged up on her. Yeah, Eddy sounded kind of afraid…but that's probably just because he knew he was going to lose. That's just what happened when you were the baby sibling.

The kids they had kidnapped were quiet.

Eddy began: "Edmond, I don't want—"

Eddy's brother spun him upside down and grabbed him by the leg. The man's eyes were, wide excited. May's smile began to fade.

"You guys want to crash at my place, right?" his brother said.

"That's why we came—" Eddy started.

Edmond twisted his foot to one side.

"Fuck! Uncle! Uncle!"

"Oh my!" Double D cried.

"Uncle!"

A slow grin spread all over Edmond's face. "Say what?" He twisted the ankle even harder.

Eddy slapped one hand on the ground again and again. He was trying to tap out, but there was no referee. Not at all.

"Uncle! Uncle! Uncle! Uncle!"

"The hell is this shit?" Lee cried. She was angry, but she was afraid too. May could hear it in her voice. Eddy's brother was big, about four times as big as Eddy.

Edmond laughed. It was a low, deep laugh right from the belly. He spun Eddy around, right side-up and had him by the collar again. Eddy had a grin painted on his face, but he was sweating like a stuck pig. His hands were crossed over his chest.

"Okay, man." his voice was like that of a mouse. "Can we go inside now?"

Edmond stroked his chin hairs for a long time. Then he started to grin again. "Sure thing. Don't forget to wipe your feet."

Suddenly, he threw Eddy at the door to his trailer. Threw him like a football.

Eddy smashed into the whale trailer, making the whole thing rattle. He bounced off, rolling back towards his brother.

May wasn't smiling anymore. This wasn't like when she and her sisters got a little rough with each other. This wasn't like the time they put all that random shit on her face instead of makeup. Eddy wasn't even fighting back. This…this was just horrible.

"S'matter pipsqueak?" Edmond said, giggling like a lunatic. "I thought you wanted to go inside. Fucking go!"

Edmond threw him a second time, putting a dent in the door.

The kids cried out, shocked and scared.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING TO MY MAN?!" Lee roared. She was stomping towards him. May grabbed her by the left hand; Marie took the other. They were trying to pull her back, but she was still going forward.

"Lee, stop!" May cried out. Lee was strong, but this man was an adult. May didn't think she could take him. Not now.

But it wasn't just Lee. The kids had broken out of the ropes that May and her sisters had put them in. Now they were starting to stand up, and they were angry too.

Eddy bounced off the door and rolled toward his brother again. Edmond walked over to him.

"Pipsqueak, the door is right _there_."

"Bro, give it up."

"Give it up?" His brother made it seem like Eddy just made fun of him. He took Eddy by both wrists, and raised him up so they were seeing eye to eye. "I thought you wanted to hang out with your _hero_."

Tears ran down Eddy's face. "I do, bro. I do."

"Mr. Edmond, sir!" Double D came forward, still wearing that ridiculous yellow plaid tie over his red shirt.

Eddy's brother stopped, looked at Double D the way May looked at creepy spiders.

Double D's face was stern. "Don't you think you should serve as a role model to your little brother…"

A slow grin spread across Edmond's face.

Double D's eyes grew big and he slowed down. "…and not belittle him in front…of…..his…um...friends?"

May had seen a lot of people smiles, had seen a lot of happiness. Edmond's smiled only showed his teeth. It was like a man-eating giant grinning at you.

"Belittle?" Edmond snickered. "He's _always _been little!"

He did a quick spin around, swinging Eddy around like a baseball bat, smacking Double D across the head. He rolled around until he hit the whale trailer too.

Marie and Ed both shouted his name at the same time.

"Rolf has had enough!" the beanstalk said. He puffed his chest out. "Prepare yourself for a merciless thrashing!"

The jock was cowering behind him for a moment. Then the beanstalk moved him up front.

The jock looked scared—terrified—for a second, but then his face hardened. "Hey, bro guy! Lay off him, man!"

It was almost like the guy couldn't hear him. He kept spinning around, swinging Eddy around.

They all came toward him, first the chasing trio; the beauty queen and the jock and the farm boy. But they weren't fighting all the time like May and her sisters.

And the guy, Edmond _had_ been paying attention. As soon as the three got close to him, Edmond swung Eddy at them. The beauty queen got sent into the dirt, the farm boy rolled away like a bowling ball, and the jock nearly flew.

Lee finally yanked her hands away from her sisters, yanking so hard May nearly fell over. She charged at Eddy's brother, yelling the whole time.

He saw her coming, and swung Eddy at her. She obviously ducked. Then May thought Lee had an opening, but she didn't throw a punch. She paused. No…she_ hesitated_.

_She wants to put him down, _May thought. _But she wants to grab Eddy first. She doesn't know which one to do._

That gave Edmond time to swing his brother around again. This time, Lee wasn't fast enough and she got knocked into the air, flipping over and over. She fell down hard on the ground, covering and sputtering.

Edmond stopped spinning. He'd worked up a sweat.

"Holy shit." he said. "I really fucking forgot how much fun this fucking is."

Everyone was groaning on the ground. Lee's nose was bleeding.

It was just May and Marie left.

"I'm gonna fucking kill him." Marie said softly.

"Marie, we can't." May said.

"Fuck you."

"He's too strong. He's too big." May put a hand on her shoulder.

Marie snapped it away, glaring at her. "Sit down on the ground then! Sit down on the ground and cry! It wouldn't be the first time, now would it?!"

Already crying, May just looked at her.

Marie started walking toward him. Edmond walked towards her, dragging Eddy behind him. He was clawing at the ground, trying to grab onto something. Anything. The farm by was in front of them, bruised but trying to stand up again. He was facing the wrong way, looking at May. He turned around in time to get a sock in the face. He sat back down on the ground. Walking past him, Edmond kicked him to make him lie flat.

May just stood there, weak and useless. Marie wouldn't beat him. If Lee couldn't take him, Marie had no chance. But she was so proud that she wouldn't admit that with a gun to her head.

Edmond was about to beat up Marie. Then he would probably beat up May too.

_It won't ever stop, _May thought. _He's just going to take turns with us. This day won't ever end._

Then, sudden loud footsteps. They were coming from behind Edmond.

"Huh?" the man said, and turned around.

Big Ed was behind him, holding an entire door.

[5]

The image was burned in May's mind forever.

Big Ed holding the door above his head like a wooden stake, about to drive it into a vampire lord.

Edmond looking first straight ahead, and then noticing that Ed was four feet off the ground, having jumped at the last second.

Edmond not seeming to understand what Ed was doing, or why he maybe needed to put his free hand up to try to block (maybe the man was just so used to being the strongest person in a fight, so used to the other person not fighting back).

Big Ed bringing the flat side of the door down like a hammer.

The door smashing the top of Edmond's head. The door smashing into a million splinters.

Edmond's head slamming into the ground so hard that it left a dent, so hard that his head actually bounced back up and the rest of his body with it.

His right arm _finally _letting go of Eddy.

Edmond doing a little dipsy-doodle, turning around and around until his foot caught on farm boy, who was still motionless on the ground.

Edmond falling flat on his face.

Edmond croaking "Uncle…"

And Big Ed just standing there, the most beautiful man May had ever laid eyes on.

[6]

"Hey." a small voice said.

That cut through the chatter of May and her sisters arguing. It was finally spring and they were outside, doing the laundry. May was sorting the stuff and giving it to Marie, who was tossing it to Lee so she could stomp them up and down in the washing machine that was still broken.

They all turned. It was Eddy.

His arms had gotten broken. Not bad enough for casts but bad enough for splints. Now, they were healed and he was rubbing his arms, just like May always did when she was nervous.

"Look who it is." Marie said.

"I'm first." May said, smiling.

"Not today, girls." Lee said.

Marie and May turned on her at the same time. "What?!"

"I said not today." Lee said. Her face was calm. She stood in the washing machine with her hands on her hips. "What do you want, runt?"

May looked at Lee. Her eyes, as usual, were blocked by her hair. But May could see the vein standing out on her neck, and her jaw was clenched. She was pissed.

Eddy rubbed his neck. "I…"

"Spit it out!"

"Well…"

"Before I die of old age, please!" Lee shouted.

Eddy face went tight for a second, like he was trying to pass a gallstone. Finally, he screamed: "THANK YOU! ALL RIGHT?!"

Nobody said anything for a moment. Eddy was gasping for air.

"Thanks?" Lee asked. "For what?"

"Months ago." Eddy said. "Back in the amusement park. You stood up for me."

"I didn't do that for you."

Eddy finally gave one of his typical smirks. "Really? Who'd you do it for, then?"

Lee blushed and looked away. "Whatever. Don't care what you think. Why did you even go to that idiot in the first place?"

"See, we did this scam—"

"I know that, shrimp." Lee hissed. "_Why _did you go to him?"

"Those guys were chasing us!"

Lee jumped out of the washing machine, landed on the ground with both feet. Eddy jumped a little bit.

"_Why _did you go to him?!" Lee yelled.

"Because he's big and strong."

"He's a bully."

Eddy glared at her. "So are you."

Lee was silent for a moment. Her bottom lip was quivering. "So that's it, right? That's what you think I am." She started to walk back toward the washing machine. "Goodbye, Eddy."

"Lee—"

She spun around. "I said FUCK OFF!"

Eddy wouldn't move. He was pissed too. Then his eyes grew wide as something came to him. "I should have picked you guys instead, is that right?"

"What?" Lee said.

"Is that why you're so pissed?" Eddy asked. "I don't know if I've ever seen you so pissed. Double D smashed your foot by accident last year and you didn't scream at him like this. Sarah smashed your hand on purpose _this _year and you didn't scream at her like this."

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"I _should _have picked you." Eddy said and sighed. "But I just didn't think about it. That's all it was. Edmond beat the shit out of me all the time. Sometimes he hit me until I wet my pants."

"Jesus…" May said.

"But you gotta understand…he didn't do it all the time." Eddy pleaded. "One time he took me to the Gag Factory, just the two of us."

He smiled at them. It was a broken smile.

"He bought me one of those stupid buzzers you put on your hand, you know, it shocks people when you give them a handshake. He was a piece of shit, but I thought—I don't know—that maybe he'd changed or something. Even if he didn't change, I thought he would wait until the coast was clear to starting beating me into the ground."

"You thought wrong." Lee said. It wasn't to poke fun at him. She was just telling it how it was.

He buried his face in his hands. "I'm such an idiot. I should have asked you. Okay?"

"Yeah," Lee said. "You should have."

She hugged him.

[7]

Eddy and Lee became a couple and it was the talk of the school. It forced the Eds and the Kankers to sit at the same table. Holy shit, it had been awkward. Eddy and Lee trying to make people talk. But Double D would just sit there with one of his big-ass books and ignore them. Big Ed, the big sweetheart, would just say ridiculous, funny things that made May laugh. She tried to flirt with him, but she wasn't very good at it. And Ed still got scared so easily, even after Eddy's brother.

Marie would smack Double D's book out of his hands, and he'd pick it back up off the floor without saying anything to her. Eddy and Lee, and even May would tell her to cut it out, but Marie never listened to anybody.

It was funny, but it was awkward and bad too. May was happy for her sister. Really. But it seemed like Marie was starting to hate Double D. And Big Ed still thought May wanted to tie him up and make out with him. Yeah, she had _done_ it before but…

Eddy and Lee's relationship only lasted for two months. It had been her and her sisters' fault. May knew that even then.

[8]

The screen door to their shitty trailer opened with a crash. Eddy was there with a bag of food he'd taken from his parents.

May had been trying to get both her sisters off the floor, starting with Marie. Thinking back, it actually really wasn't very smart because she was still weaker than both of them. But her sisters were passed out on the floor to begin with, so they were stupid too.

"Sup hookers!" he said cheerfully.

"Eddy?!" May got startled, dropped Marie by accident. She went _thud _on the floor. May turned around. "Now's not really a good time—"

"I've said it before! I'll say it again! You haven't lived until you've tried one of my omle—"

He'd been backing up through the door as he said it. Then the bag of food got stuck in the door. He tried yanking it out, but it was as good as stuck.

"Shitballs." He turned around, "Hey, Lee, could you help me with—"

He let go the bag and turned all the way around. May saw he was wearing a white "Kiss the Cook" apron. It was too big for him, and it trailed under his feet.

Eddy was smiling. For a moment it stayed there. His eyes were wide and full of hope.

Then they crumbled.

The day before had been bad. The day before wasn't even worth talking or thinking about. But the evidence was all right here right now. Marie and Lee had gone to sleep. For a moment, May had been scared. That maybe they had done too much and hurt themselves.

She didn't know a lot, but she did know how to check to see if someone's heart was still ticking and theirs had been. So May, only a little bit drunk herself but pretty high, had just walked around the house. One second she was in one room. She'd blink and be in another room. It was like she could teleport.

And now this.

"Eddy…" May started.

"The fuck is this?" Eddy said.

He pointed. "The fuck is _that_?! The FUCK ARE _THOSE_?!"

"Eddy…"

"Are…are you guys drug dealers?!" Eddy shouted.

That was so stupid that she actually laughed. If they got involved in that kind of stuff—that _racket _as the black and white shows called them—they would wind up with cement shoes at the bottom of a lake.

"Don't be dumb, Eddy. Of course we ain't drug dealers."

He dropped the bag of groceries, which was still stuck in the door. The top sagged to the ground, and food was starting to fall out of it: hot dogs, ketchup, hamburger, salt and pepper, even a whole chicken. Was Eddy going to make them an omelet or a buffet.

"Why?" Eddy cried. "Why is all this shit here? Where the fuck is Lee?!"

Before May could answer, Lee groaned from behind the couch. She slowly stood up. Her eyes were bloodshot, and she had a nosebleed. It was so bad that most of her red polka dot blouse was just red. She had a piece of rubber tube wrapped around her left upper arm. At the bend of the elbow, the vein was popping out, and it was bleeding.

"Oh my, God!" Eddy cried again.

"What's going on?" Lee rubbed her head. "Oh. Hey, Eddy."

"Holy shit, Lee!"

Eddy tried running towards her, but that apron he was wearing really was just too damn big for him. He tripped, falling flat on his face.

"Chill out, Eddy." Lee groaned. She looked like she was trying to walk around the couch. But she just kept walking right into it instead.

But Eddy didn't chill out. He called Double D, asked him to come over and help. May thought there would be an argument, but there wasn't one.

Sockhead came through the door half an hour later. He had a medical kit with him.

"What the hell took you?" Eddy said.

Double D glared at him. "It actually turns out, Eddy, that stealing anti-drug supplies from your father's clinic takes more than three fucking seconds. I do apologize."

That made May giggle. She'd never heard Double D swear before. Marie wouldn't get to hear it for another five years or so.

"I don't need this shit." Lee grunted. "I just need some food in me."

She was sitting on the couch, but she wasn't eating any food. She had opened a bottle of ketchup and she was drinking it.

"Just shut up and let the man work." Eddy ordered. Lee was still too high to give Eddy shit for that.

[9]

And she got better and she promised not to do it again. Really, Eddy made her promise that. But in those two months, Lee did it again…and then a third time. Each time was worse than the last. The third time, she had to be taken to the hospital.

It was the end of the school year, June, when Eddy broke it off with her. The fight had been loud and heated. Teachers and students opened classroom doors to look at them. Marie was just standing back, pretending not to care. May was trying to calm the two of them down when Lee pushed her into a locker. She was pushed so hard that the locker broke off from the others and almost fell on top of her. May was dizzy when she stood up. And crying.

For that, Eddy called Lee a stupid bitch and that's when they started swinging at each other. Lee was still stronger than him, and beat him bad. But Eddy got some good licks in too: he bit her on the crotch and uppercutted her, and she sat down on the floor. The cops got called in. Both of them were suspended.

And after that, it was like May's sisters and the Eds were enemies all over again. It was even worse than before. They didn't talk to each other, but May and her sisters didn't even try stalking them anymore. Marie still picked on Double D.

[10]

Eddy and Double D got into an argument about some kind of prank or something in the cafeteria. It looked like their friendship was over.

At home, Hesh, her mama's boyfriend came into the trailer. He had a key.

May looked up from the Naruto manga she was reading. "Mama's not home. She's not gonna be back for about a half hour. You want a soda?"

He didn't answer for a second. He was drunk but he'd shown up like that before. Last time, he just sat on the sofa with the vanilla cola May gave him.

"You got a pretty mouth." Hesh said.

That made no sense and May raised an eyebrow. Then before she knew what was going on, he was on top of her, groping her tits. May slapped him. He was a big, chubby man, but somehow that made him get off her.

Then something silly happened. The man just didn't _understand_ why she had done that. He was close to tears, like May had shot his dog or something.

Marie came in, saw what was happening and started yelling at Hesh too. Hesh did something insane, then: he pushed May, and then slapped Marie. Marie ran into the kitchen and came back with mom's Glock 26.

"You fucking touch her again." Marie said quietly. "You touch any of my family again, I'll fucking kill you. That isn't a threat. That is a fucking _promise._"

Mama came in and saw what was happening. She took her dumb boyfriend's side and Marie threw the gun directly at her head. It fired and put a hole in the couch.

Marie ran off. She made love to Double D. She told May but not Lee. May was happy for her, just like she'd been happy for Lee and Eddy all those years ago. She still didn't have Big Ed and that still hurt. She still tried flirting with him and he still ran away, frightened.

[11]

The end of high school.

Lee was still taking drugs. All different kinds, but she was "smarter" about it, not doing them all at once like she did years ago.

Lee got a new boyfriend, Thomas. He also took drugs, and he was "also" smart enough to not do them all at once. But he was an asshole. One time Lee came back home from his house and she had a black eye. May hated him and Marie wanted to cut his throat when he slept. Lee cried in the bathroom when she thought nobody was listening.

For May, it was so odd. Lee was always a strong bitch, a tough bitch. When she saw what Eddy's brother was, May and Marie had to hold her back. Now, she was like Eddy had been back then. Too afraid to show her spine.

There was a party at Kevin's house. Everyone was there except for Marie and Double D. Eddy was avoiding Lee.

Then Lee and Thomas got into an argument. They were always arguing and Lee always buckled. Not this time. She wanted to break it off. People were turning to watch, including Eddy. Thomas punched her in the stomach.

Kevin broke through the crowd. "What the hell is going on here?"

Before anyone could say anything, Eddy came through the crowd with a lamppost. His eyes were like fire. Thomas turned around in time to get a lightbulb shattered over his head. He grabbed his head and screamed. Eddy jabbed the bottom of the lamppost into his gut, knocking the wind out of him.

"Eddy, stop!" Lee said. She tried to reach for him. May grabbed her from behind, pinning her arms to her side.

"Stupid piece of shit!" Eddy screamed. He swung the head of the lamppost into Thomas' skull, making him fall over on his side. Thomas tried to get up. Eddy jabbed the bottom of the post into his forehead. Thomas fell over on his back.

May thought that was done. But Eddy cocked high and swung wide, cracking Thomas' left jaw, sending teeth flying. Then he did it to the other side.

Nazz grabbed Eddy's shoulder. "Eddy, no!"

Eddy let go of the post, and slapped Nazz's hand away. "Let me tell you something, Tom-Tom." He bent low so they were face to face. Thomas was twice as tall as Eddy. But right now, Eddy looked so _large._

"You ever touch Lee like that again, and I will _never _stop hitting you. Do you fucking understand me?"

Thomas just coughed up blood. His eyes rolled back and forth in their sockets.

"I'll beat you to death, Tom-Tom." Eddy spat in his face. Then Rolf and Kevin managed to grab him and get him away.

[12]

Eddy spent some time in jail. He said to his friends that it was more than worth it.

Eddy showed up at the trailer again. Lee answered. They didn't say anything for a while.

"Why did you pick him?" was all he said.

"I'm sorry." Lee said, sobbing. "I really don't know."

"You should have picked me." he said softly. "You should have picked me over the drugs."

Lee cried, "I know."

He raised his hands, making Lee flinch.

He put them on her cheeks. "I love you."

May walked away from the trailer while they made love.

She was happy for Lee once again.

But she still didn't have Big Ed.

And that still hurt.

[13]

Then before May even quite knew what had happened, she was 25 years old. At this point, her sisters had long left the trailer. Lee was in the United States Army, driving around a tank. Eddy was line manager at a nearby Ford Plant. Marie was a news producer for Channel 7. Double D was studying for his doctorate at the university.

May meanwhile, just felt like she was wandering about. She would get her communication degree. She knew that for certain. She also had a job at the same factory Eddy worked in. He was a pretty good boss too.

But she just didn't know what she wanted out of life.

May's crush on Big Ed was forgotten. He spent so much time avoiding her that she finally got the hint. He hadn't gone to college. She thought he was smart enough, but just didn't have the attention span for it. He'd been hired as a farmhand for Rolf's family. One time, May had been walking by and she'd seen him out on the fields…with his shirt off. Dear, sweet buttery Jesus, he was _ripped_.

But it didn't matter. Not anymore.

She'd filled the void with playing video games. Darkest Dungeon, XCOM, so many different Gundam games. Virtual reality was reaching its peak, and May had saved up for an Oculist Rift. She'd played Eve on it and was actually a fearsome pilot known as "Love Machine."

It was summer yet again and a new VR game had come out. This one required its own special equipment. It was a roleplaying game, an MMORPG. She usually had a hard time getting into those. Final Fantasy 14 had been the sole exception. Instead of swords and sorcery, this new one focused on martial arts and ki, just like Dragon Ball Z.

Its name? Well…you can probably figure that out.


	2. The Prison

The Prison

AN: Yes, we all know this is the same set up for Sword Art Online. Martial arts with some ki/spirit energy crap thrown in: Dragon Ball and YuYu Hakusho for 300. I think I'll take location names from Breathe of the Wild as well. And while I'm at it, the stupidly vague stats title from Shadow Tower for the PS1. Shadow Tower was actually made by From Software, of Dark Souls acclaim. I'm guessing the stupid stat titles in that game was the reason they put easy to understand stats like "Bleed/Poison/Fire/Shock Resist" in later titles. Also, I don't practice martial arts. Can you tell? One more chapter to go and my little Self vs. Self series is complete.

Live long and prosper.

[1]

Marie woke up in Double D's dorm before he did, which was often the case every given week. His classes for Tuesday and Thursday didn't start until noon.

Marie, however, needed to be at work in 45 minutes.

If she wanted to be a fucking bitch, she could yank the covers off Double D and leave the door open, so Roger would see him in the buff on the way to the bathroom. But she didn't feel like being a bitch, and _hadn't _for the past three years. Double D had that kind of effect on you.

There was a rumbling sound: her cell phone on the nightstand. It was her mama, so she didn't see the point in answering it. Mama Kanker never felt like calling any of them, except to either ask them for money or to bitch about whoever she was slipping it to her with this week. She went to Double D's bathroom, washed up, and came out with a towel. Instead of blue, she now had pink highlights running through her black hair.

Double D's dorm mate, Roger, was in the living room. He had a glass of malt liquor in one hand and was cooking something on the stove with the other. His eyes were bloodshot.

"Sup." Marie said. "You look like hammered shit."

"Please stop yelling." Roger muttered. He looked like he was about to cry. That made her snicker.

"Get off that shit, Rog." Marie said. "You're a fucking mess."

"Fuck off, Marie." Roger said, and went back to cooking his food.

Marie could have wiggled the knife a bit more. It might even do him some good. She didn't like Roger, but he was running himself into the ground. Summer semester was nearly over and he'd barely attended his classes at all. A failed class was wasted tuition, and wasting money was practically a sin. Eddy and Marie didn't agree on much of anything…but they could agree on that.

But Roger didn't look like he was in a "listening" kind of mood. He wanted to feel bad for himself. Marie let him. She went back to Double D's bedroom. She got some clean clothes out of the dresser and picked up her phone. It was rumbling again. It was her mom again.

_Better get this over with, _Marie thought, and pressed the green button.

[2]

May's eyes were wide with terror.

The sky had suddenly turned red, and there was a giant tumor in the sky.

It had no face, but all across its body were ruined slashes filled with razor sharp teeth. Tentacles of various shapes and sizes protruded out from cancerous flesh.

She was in Eldin Village, surrounded by hundreds of other players. She was out in the Eldin Foothills when she realized that there was no option to exit the game in the pause menu. It obviously had to be a mistake or she just missed where it was on the interface, and she came back to town to see if anyone had any info on it. But when she talked to the first player she saw RC1985, the man said he couldn't find "exit game" option either.

A mistake obviously. A bug.

Then the Elder Demon appeared in the sky, dwarfing any of the buildings around them. It spoke with a hundred voices, male and female, human and demonic. None of its mouths were synched with the voices. It spoke into their minds:

_"__I am Xe Tang Le, the designer of Sacred Fist. There are currently 6 million fighters on the planet of Tal, all using the Synapse Reactor Gear that is required to play the game. It is a genius device, the Reactor Gear. It attaches conductors to your body. You will not…you cannot exit this game. I have forbidden it. The rules of the game are simple. If your life bar is completely depleted, for any reason, you die in this world. If you die in this world, the Reactor Gear will send 500,000 volts of electricity coursing through your body in the real world, and will _not_ stop until you have expired. If someone attempts to physically remove the gear from you, it will have the same result. To release the Reactor Gear, you must journey to Lanayru, the cursed central region of the kingdom. One of you must slay the archdemon, the Princess of the Moon. When she expires, the game will be permanently over, and the Reactor Gear will shut down, waking you up and releasing you from your…session. Until then…the game will continue. But first, I'll take away the barrier between all of you. The barrier of illusion."_

The demon suddenly shined with fiery red light.

Everyone hit the deck, thinking it would explode or something.

But no, it was merely gone in a flash of intense light, nearly blinding may even though she had her eyes closed.

When the burning stopped, she finally opened them. Got up, looked around. Something was different. The people looked different. They had all changed appearances.

May took out her mirror, which all players came equipped with. She looked into it. She had made her in-game appearance quite different from her real-life one. She no buckteeth or freckles. She'd given herself dark skin and platinum-white hair. She wanted to look like the rabbit people from Final Fantasy.

Now, she looked just like she did in real life, buckteeth and freckles and all. The only traits that had stayed were the horns and yellow eyes, to show she was a half-demon.

"Oh…" May said. "This is really bad."

All around her, people were beginning to scream.

[3]

"Marie…" Double D warned.

"Shut the fuck up."

"We're going to get pulled over."

"Shut the fuck up!"

They were flying down the highway, going at least 90.

Marie was driving Double D's Chevy Cobalt. Even though it was his, Marie was usually the one driving it. Double D merely had to walk from the dorms to the campus, while Marie had to drive to the news station five sometimes, six days a week.

Marie driving right now didn't make much sense, but it was happening just the same. Her hands were trembling on the wheel. Tears were running down her eyes and she kept taking _both _hands off the wheel to wipe them off. It was driving him fucking insane, but any warning just earned him the exact same result:

"Marie, if the police…"

"Double D!" she screamed, looking at him for far too long. "Please just stop talking. Okay? Just shut the fuck up until we get there."

But the warnings Double D kept saying, the ones she kept ignoring, turned out to be true. There was a cop car parked in the emergency lane. Even if Marie had started slowing down, it would have been too late. Except she didn't. She never saw it at all.

The police car turned on the sirens and turned out. Then something silly happened. The second the police car turned out, a pickup truck rear-ended it.

What they didn't know then, they knew now. The pickup truck driver had been in the news. His name was Peter Proctor. He was an attorney for Farm Bureau. He had two kids and one stepkid. The stepkid had gotten Sacred Fist as a birthday yesterday. The mom tried to wake him up, but he wasn't responding. She had nearly tried pulling the Reactor Gear off him, but something told her not to. She went downstairs and looked at the news, and saw the exact same shit that Ms. Kanker did. She'd called Peter away from a deposition he had been taking on a witness injured in an auto accident.

The police car nearly flipped over. It went careening into another car and started a pile up.

"Oh dear…" Double D said.

"Not our problem." Marie said coldly.

It was so wrong to feel this way, but Double D felt it just the same—he was glad.

Then a miracle happened, Marie calmed down a little bit. She brought the Cobalt down to a much more sensible 80. They still might get pulled over, but she knew for a fact that some cops in this state just ignored that.

They made it to Peach Creek, made it to the trailer park.

They got out and raced for the door. It was left unlocked and ajar. There was some loud bullshit going on inside. Marie kicked the door open. The sounds were coming from the bedroom. Marie ran and kicked that door open too.

In front of them was the back of the boyfriend of the week, a real brick shit house of a human being. He had a blue wife beater on and camo cargo pants. His head almost touched the ceiling. His name was Karl with a K.

Barely in view, Ms. Kanker stood between Karl and May.

"I want her off that fucking machine!"

"Karl we can't. It'll kill her!"

"What kind of horseshit sense does that make?!"

"It's _rigged_ Karl. It's a trap!"

"Fucking bullshit!"

"Just listen to me for three seconds—"

He backhanded her to the ground. Double D took the stun gun from his pocket. Marie took her brass knuckles out from hers.

"No, you fucking listen to _me, _you dumb bitch! We kill ourselves working double shifts at different jobs. She does nothing! This is ridiculous!"

Ms. Kanker sat up. Her lip was bleeding. Double D noticed she had a black eye too.

"I'm sorry, Karl! Jesus Christ!"

Karl said: "A hard-working man gets up in the morning, he wants some damn breakfast. Not cereal. Not Pop Tarts. Good fucking stuff to eat! That's _her_ responsibility! That's what she _should _be fucking doing instead of playing these damn video games and I want her fucking _off_ it right now!"

"She goes to college too!" Ms. Kanker said.

Double D barely stifled his laughter, even though he knew it wasn't really appropriate.

"College?" Karl said, sputtering laughter. "Don't make me fucking laugh! With those commie teachers? That's the reason kids these days are a bunch of godless pussies that don't stand up for the flag. That's the reason boys these days are walking around with fucking dresses!"

"It matches my makeup." Double D said evenly.

Karl turned around and was met with two metal prongs digging into his flesh. Immediately, he got buzzed with a few volts. Double D thought he'd need to shock the man again. He wouldn't. Karl dropped like a sack of potatoes. He convulsed and jittered on the floor. He was big but nowhere near as tough as he thought he was, just like most loudmouths.

"Oh my God, Karl!" Ms. Kanker said. She ran to him. The man was drooling from one corner of his mouth. Well, more than he usually was anyway.

"The fuck you do that for?!" she cried. She was a heavy-set woman, with dyed-pink hair and pink acrylic nails. She wore a yellow dress.

"How'd you get that black-eye, mama?" Marie asked conversationally.

"I fell down some—"

Marie cut her off. "No, no, no. Don't worry about it. No problem. I got it."

She walked over to Karl's shaking body. She held out one arm, made an L-shape with it. She fell over, directly onto Karl, dropping her elbow right into his groin.

A small bird-cry escaped from Karl. His squinting eyes popped open like balloons.

"Stop!" Ms. Kanker said, but she didn't do anything. She was just sitting on the floor, sobbing.

Double D just stood there, arms crossed, face calm. This was a movie he had watched a few too many times. It had gotten past the point of being tragic. Now, it was just tiring.

Now Act 3 of the movie, Marie just beating on Mom's Boyfriend. It was tough shit and sometimes he wondered if Marie took it too far. But they needed some guarantees. The Vengeful Ex-Boyfriend Coming Back was shit you saw on Matlock and Law and Order, but it happened in real life too.

When she was done, Marie got up to a crouching position. She knocked off Karl's stupid ball cap with the flag on it and yanked the man up by his bushy hair. He had two black eyes, missing teeth and his nose was bleeding. Marie's knuckles were bleeding. She was grinning, showing a few teeth.

"There's a couple other things we gotta straighten out, Carl with a C." Marie said in a low, steady voice. "You listening?"

Karl just sobbed.

"You and mama? That's over and done with. You were one of mama's, so my standards for you were pretty damn low. I don't give a shit that you're an Oakie piece of chicken-fried crap. I don't fucking care if you stand for the flag or kneel for the cross. I don't care if you think the beaners are stealing all the jobs, the niggers are robbing all the houses, or the kikes own all the banks."

"But you hit mama. We both know you've done it more than once. And you were about to kill my sister whether you knew it or not. You gotta go. But before you do, I need you to understand something. We have guns here. I have a gun right now."

She didn't but whatever.

"I catch you touch mama again, if I catch you touch May, I _will _kill you. You will fucking die that very same day. You understand me?"

"You fucking…bitch…" Karl grunted. "I'll…"

"DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?!" Marie shrieked.

Karl nodded violently.

"Good."

And with that, she dragged Ms. Kanker's ex-boyfriend to the front door and threw him out.

[4]

May's choices for character creation in Sacred Fist had been pretty simple.

Her name, of course, was Love#Machine yet again. She knew people would be making jokes about it and that was just fine.

The races to choose from were human, half-breed and demon.

Half-human/demons had balanced stats and growth in all areas. They could be every alignment that wasn't Lawful because half-demons were outlaws. They could enter any villages they wanted but not the main capital of the region, Faron City.

Humans had the weakest starting stats, and their physical growth was poor, but the devs kept hinting that they had access to some type of spirit energy that none of the other races had. They wouldn't give any more info than that, so a lot of people weren't buying into it—May included. Their Morality alignment could be anything and they were legally able to go anywhere.

Demons were naturally gifted in all areas compared to everyone else, but their Morality alignment could only be Neutral or Evil. Which meant some actions in the game (like healing your teammate for no personal gain) simply couldn't be done because it just wasn't what Demons did. They also couldn't enter any villages or cities at all.

May tried selecting Demon, but the button didn't work. It would later turn out there was another catch too. Only a few people in the player population even had the option of picking Demon because in the game world, "There weren't that many full-blooded Demons left."

A fourth race was Spirits…as in ghosts. But ghosts were just NPCs and couldn't be picked.

May's in-game race was half demon/human. Until level 25, she would only be able to use normal Spirit Energy for her attacks. After level 25, she would get access to Demon Energy and the name of a particular stat would reflect that.

The stats went like this:

Vitality: for health

Strength: for damage with fists and physical weapons.

Speed: your ability to move on the ground and in the air

Defense: resistance to physical attacks.

Balance: resistance to attacks canceling out yours. Has no effect on grapple moves.

Spirit: The total amount of "mana" you have.

Focus: how fast your stamina bar recovers.

Harmony: how fast your spirit energy recovers

Purity: how fast you recover from status ailments.

Melting: affects spirit damage

Particle: affects spirit defense

Soul: your alignment. The typical chart is used with Morality as Good, Neutral, and Evil; and Discipline as Lawful, Neutral and Chaotic.

There were also weapon stats: Smash, Pierce, and Slash. The weapons they affect are about what anyone would expect. These only affected physical weapons, not Spirit ones.

As a half-demon, May's choices were the fiery region of the Eldin Province, near Death Mountain or the snowy Hebra Territories all the way on the other side of the world map. May picked Eldin, which only affected her choice of starting gear and first few quests, as well as enemies. The martial discipline choices were the same either way.

The main options for that were the general terms boxing, kickboxing, combat wrestling. You could further specialize into the different types of martial arts. May chose kickboxing, which meant blocking with the hands while attacking and counterattacking with the legs. That specialization just meant doing the acts that the art in question was known for. Neck clinches and knee strikes meant being considered a Muay Thai fighter and so on.

Spirit Energy Specialization was a bit harder. There were Spirit Bullets, Weapons and Shields. Using the last two drained your Spirit at a constant rate. There were also items you could put Spirit Energy into, but that cost much less. May put her starting points into Bullets, to give her something for long range.

Once she spawned into Rudania Village, it seemed like most other people had done the same.

May talked to a few Spirit NPCs, got her first missions, which were simple fetch quests for things just outside of town. She went out into the lush landscape. The graphics were so detailed she could make out the blades of grass on the ground, and the ripples in the water. The sky was such a deep blue that it was almost alien.

She threw some punches and kicks, which drained her stamina bar. The recovery was moderately fast. She pointed her finger up at the sky. Spirit Energy immediately glowed at the tip of her finger. She said, "Bang!" Which fired off a tiny little laser. Which drained half of her spirit bar. The spirit bar didn't seem to be recovering at all. That was simply how the game was. It would be hours in-game before it was back to 100. The items to make the gauge restore faster were very rare.

May went out into the Eldin foothills. She fought some wild animals, punching and kicking the shit out of them. She pointed her finger at a bigger Salamander thing and did a Spirit Gun, which blew the poor little shit stain into a tree, making her laugh. That brought her up one level, which gave three skill points. May put two into vitality and one into spirit. Leveling up didn't restore your health or spirit energy like in some RPGs. Oh well…

She had a good time…for all of two hours anyway.

Then she opened her pause menu to look for the exit option that wasn't there.

[5]

"Is there anything you can do for her, baby?" Marie asked.

They were sitting on foot of the bed. Ms. Kanker was in the kitchen having a mixed drink or ten to calm down.

"I wish there was." Double D said. "My major is medicine. I still tinker with engineering from time to time. Computer science was never something I got too deep into. I'm not a hacker. Even if I was, Marie, we both know I couldn't risk it."

He grabbed her hand and squeezed it.

"Not with family." he said.

She hugged him.

Then his phone rang. It was Sarah and she was hysterical.

Double D was gripped by terror. _Oh fuck. Please, no._

"Double D! It's my stupid brother! That stupid VR shit! That game that people can't get out of!"

"Please…no…"

"ED IS IN THE GAME TOO!"


	3. Memories II

Memory II

AN: Something I noticed quite a few times in a lot of Ed Edd n Eddy fics dealing with EdxKanker romance. It's often a tossup whether EdxMay happens first or EddxMarie. Eddy and Lee are usually last, often due to Eddy's stubbornness and bad attitude. Personally, I could see EddyxLee happening before EdxMay. Eddy has no problem talking back to them and is usually more eager to fight them, whereas Ed usually panics and runs away screaming. But whatever. Also, so much for this being the last chapter of the story! xD

[1]

"Plank…" came the weak voice. "I gotcha buddy."

The bruised hand weakly moved toward the cut and torn hunk of wood. Plank was lying with his face up. The wide-eyes had been erased. New eyes were drawn on them instead, narrow and angry.

Jonny was a mess on the ground. His Gourd costume was cut up and beat up. The squash helmet he'd been wearing broke after Ed punched him.

The kids surrounded him. _All _of them, the cul-de-sac kids and the Kankers. Ed was usually scared stiff by them, but there was no lovey-dovey stuff happening today. He wasn't smart but he knew that much.

Everyone was covered in squash juice and meat. Kevin's hat was torn. Nazz's hair had been destroyed again. Rolf had a broken leg and was walking around with the help of a shovel. His baby sister had a black-eye. Lee had burns on her arms. Eddy's arm was broke. Marie's hair was torn, and you could see the patch she wore over her bad eye. May was the only one who was able to get through the fight without being hurt in some way. Ed himself had a massive lump on his head. But Jimmy…

Jimmy was so badly hurt that Double D was tending to him, separated from the others. Everyone else stood in the middle of the cul-de-sac. Their neighborhood was in shambles. There were houses with broken windows, damaged doors. Ed's house had gotten an ice cream truck rammed through the front door. Double D's house didn't have a roof on it.

Jonny's hands almost reached Plank. Then Eddy snatched him away at the last second.

"Give him back!" Jonny cried. He couldn't really stand, but he tried. He stumbled toward Eddy, tried to get Plank back.

"Get off him!" Kevin shouted, and body checked Jonny to the ground.

Jonny bit his lip. "Damn it!"

"This whole Gourd thing was Plank's idea." Eddy said. "Right, Jonny?"

"What?"

"That's what you told us yesterday." Eddy said. His voice was so calm. Ed never heard him like this before. "When you were using that squash firing machine."

"Yeah?!" Jonny snapped. "So what?"

"And it was stupid Plank's idea to try and capture us." Sarah said.

"And wreck our houses." Kevin said.

"And make Rolf's friends your scapegoat for it, and have our parents give us their discipline for it." Rolf said.

"Seems like every time you're fucking up, it's because of Plank." Eddy said.

Jonny's eyes grew wide. He tried getting up again. "You leave him alone, you bully!"

"Forget the stupid fucking board!" Marie shouted, walking toward Jonny.

"Yeah!" Sarah shouted. "After what blimp head over here did to us, he's done."

The two of them grabbed Jonny, but he still had enough strength to break away. He tried running toward Eddy again. Kevin was still in the way. This time, he socked Jonny in the gut. He got the wind knocked out of him, and crumpled onto the floor.

"Please…" Jonny whimpered. "Don't hurt him."

"It's a stupid piece of wood, Jonny!" Sarah screamed. "He's not real!"

"Just like Rolf's Mr. Flip, the three-eyed beaver in the Rolf's closet when Rolf was little."

"That's not true!" Jonny yelled. "He's my best friend! He's a better fucking friend than any of you jerks! You beat me up in that park last year!"

"That's because you beat up our friends!" Kevin said.

"Yeah…good for you, Eddy." Jonny said. "You got _these_ guys for friends. So let me tell you something about the friends you got now."

"Shut up, Jonny." Nazz said.

"When they need to keep somebody on the _outside_, that's when they're your friends."

Jonny slowly stood up.

"They'll invite you to a fake rich club. They'll invite you over for movies and video games. But that's just so they can make jokes about the dorks on the outside they didn't wanna invite."

Everyone was silent.

"They aren't your friends when you ask them out to a dance." Jonny said, glaring at Sarah. "Then they would rather dance with a frog…and then they beat you up for asking! They aren't your friends when just asking you to move your head out of the way when you're blocking their view. They would rather punch you in the back of the head and give you a concussion. They aren't your friends when someone rips out your radiator and uses your house as a sauna. _Then _they would rather just chat it up _in _the sauna while you're stuck in a tree."

"Jonny…" Nazz started.

"And they aren't you're friends when it comes to warning you about a mistake _before_ you make it. They would rather beat the shit out of you _after _you do it and just leave you on the ground. Because it's really you're fault, you see? You should have known already because you're Charles Xavier! No, you're Randall Flagg!"

Jonny was stumbling toward Eddy again, who was backing away from him, scared. Jonny was laughing. He was crying. He was hysterical. "Well, how about it, Eddy?! Don't those friends sound like the best people in the world?!"

"Shut up!" Sarah slapped him to the ground. "I'm glad I didn't go to that dance with you, psycho! We beat up Eddy all the time! Do you see _him_ trying to be a supervillain?"

"I kinda did do that once." Eddy said quietly.

Sarah ignored him. "Jimmy didn't beat you up at all, Fathead! The Kankers didn't beat you up either!"

Kevin turned to Eddy. "It ain't true, man."

"Okay, Kev."

"Jonny was our friend too."

"Okay, Kev. I believe you, man."

"Enough. Fucking. Talking!" Marie cried. "Are we going to beat up Squirrel Boy or not?!"

Before anyone could answer, Plank was snatched out of Eddy's hands.

"Give me that." May said.

"What are you doing?" Eddy said.

May ignored him and walked over to Jonny. "Here's Woody for you."

"His name is Plank, but thank you."

"What are you doing, May?" Marie asked.

"Double D ain't here."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Sarah asked.

"Double D is always the one telling people to do better. To be better. Right?" May asked. "He's the conscious."

"That's conscience." Nazz corrected.

"That too." May said. "But he ain't here. He's looking after Dutch. So what would he say if he was here?"

Nobody said anything.

May copied Double D's voice, doing actually a very good impression. _"People, please. Jonny has learned his lesson. He didn't know that we changed. We all should have told him before he attacked Ed, Eddy and I. If we beat him up again, that might just make him even crazier. So for once, can we avoid settling a conflict with violence?"_

Everybody looked uncomfortable. They had their fists up. But then they lowered them. A few of them were blushing, others were stroking their necks and looking away.

"I was going to kill Eddy, you know that?" Kevin asked quietly.

"What?" May asked.

"After the Dork, DDork and Dorky did that prank and we got really hurt—after I got scorched so bad. I can't speak for the rest of these dudes, but _I _wanted to put them all into a coma."

"Rolf did too. Then we saw his cowardly, weasely, Cobwebs Where his Brain Should Be Brother."

Nazz said: "And we thought, is that us? Is that what we wanted to do? Take the Eds and break their bones and make them cry?"

Kevin took off his cap and wiped squash meat off it. "We saw Eddy's douchebag brother pounding his face in. And then Jonny came and did it too. I got pissed off."

"Me too." Nazz said.

"Rolf too."

"We just kind of forgot, you know?" Kevin said. "Me and Nazz, Jonny and his board, Rolf; we got split up and we got snatched up."

"By us." Lee said.

"Yeah, Kanker. By you. After all that, and after we made it to Mondo, we…we just thought Jonny already was there too."

"I wasn't." Jonny said, sniffling.

The kids moved toward Jonny. Nazz grabbed his hand. He cringed away from them. Then Nazz pulled him in for a hug, joined by Kevin and Rolf.

Ed just stared at May. He had never seen this from her before. She was always quite pretty, but she was smart too. Much too smart for him. He knew that.

Sarah didn't care about anything anyone had to say.

"Get out of my way." she said. She tried to grab Jonny, but May blocked her.

Ed came up from behind her. "Sarah, please."

"Shut up, Ed! You guys can all sit around and sing campfire songs on the banjo all you want! He's mine!"

She started scuffling with May. Marie was starting to fight her too.

Lee started to move. Ed grabbed Sarah from behind and pulled her away.

"Get off me!" she screamed. She was near tears.

"I love you." he said and held her.

"I said get off me!"

Her arms were free and she started punching him in the sides. He winced but did not let go.

"You big dumb oaf! Get your damn hands off me!"

"I love you, baby sister."

She wasn't even trying to hit him anymore. She and Jonny were separated now, but she was clawing the air in front of her trying to get him. "He hurt Jimmy! His arms are broken! His legs! He can't even move!"

"I love you, Sarah!"

Sarah burst into tears. "He c-c-can't even move, Ed!"

Suddenly, she spun around. She cried into his chest. "He can't…"

"It's okay, Sarah. Big brother's got you." Ed said.

May smiled at Ed. It was a warm smile.

He felt his face turn red and didn't look at her.

[2]

Everyone forgave Jonny, and Jonny forgave everyone. Even Sarah, but that took so much time.

Even though they were friends, he would always keep a bit of distance between himself and the others. He would eat with them during lunch, and play with them during games. But outside of school, whenever there was someone missing, it was usually him.

He would hang out with Ed more. Maybe it was because Ed was the one person who hadn't said anything about wanting to beat him up.

They played video games together. Shooters were one of their favorite games. Not weak stuff like Call of Duty or Battlefield. They played Red Orchestra 1 and 2. People said they were some of the best tankers around, certainly the best in their clan—RAGE NATION. Jonny drove while Ed was the gunner. One time they went into a game, playing as Soviets with the T-34 and knocked out 10 Panzer IV's without being destroyed.

[3]

School went on and on. Ed didn't like school, but Double D was helping both him and Eddy a lot. Eddy's grades improved to mostly B's and C's, with a few A's in things like public speaking and economics.

Ed's grades improved to mostly C's. The only A he'd ever gotten was in History. Anything else, it was just too hard to focus on for too long.

In high school, though, there were parties when the parents were away. The D&D parties were pretty cool.

Then there were the booze parties, and they weren't so great. Some people were happy when they were drunk. People _hated _seeing Nazz drunk. She never stopped crying. One time, two guys had tried to take her upstairs, into Kev's bedroom. Eddy, Rolf and Kevin beat them up for it.

Double D was _hilarious _when he was drunk, but that had only been the one time. Eddy had slipped him some gin. He went into the living room, where people had moved the table away so people could dance. Kevin saw what was he was trying to do and started laughing. "Dorko thinks he can dance!"

"Stand back, Chin Bazooka." Double D slurred, "You can't handle this awesome power."

"Give me a break!"

The rave music was heavy and hard, just the way Ed liked it. Double D started bobbing his head to get the rhythm.

Then he started striking Samurai Jack poses in perfect timing to the rhythm! Marie was sitting on the couch and she squealed.

"Holy shit!" Eddy said joyfully. He sat in Lee's lap, and she couldn't stop giggling.

Double D even started rapping along with the dancing.

"The Man of Many Chins, thinks I can't move. So stand back people! Edd's got something to prove!"

Ed started cackling.

"So you think my thin body is not worth shit. Taste the power of my lightning kicks!"

Double D raised his feet high up in the air light Chun-Li and started rapidly kicking the air in front of him. Kevin's jaw hit the ground.

"So you're the top dog on sports aggression. Put on a dunce cap, scrub. It's time for my lesson."

"Get him, Double D!" Nazz said, laughing.

"You can throw a football really hard maybe. Come Geometry, you're at my feet, crying like a baby!"

Edd capped it off by sniffling and blubbering.

Everyone was laughing now!

"Shapes? That reminds me, how's that car of yours doing? It got wrapped around a pole and then your boxers got ruined!"

"Now back to sports. Basketball. Nine games this year; you lost them all. You got a sprained ankle just this fall. You tried an alley-oop. It got scooped…by a kid not exactly _tall_, Kevin."

"Ooooohh!" the crowd went.

Kev's grin was plastered on. His face was red.

"Dorko. Geek. Wimp. _Yawn_…what a bore. We've heard it all before. It's so tiring I just want…to…go…..to sleep…and….."

Double D dipped his head and pretended to snore.

Eddy was rolling on the ground. Rolf was doubled over, crying. He was pounding the floor so hard it was starting to crack in some places. Even Nazz could barely stand up.

Double D snapped his head back up. "Sorry. That's my bad. There's really no excuse. By the way, Kev, who made the uniforms for you? Oh, and dressing the ankle that you sprained, that was me too!"

He leaned to the audience. "But…least it wasn't a needle, right?"

"Cheap shot!" Eddy said, laughing. "Get it?! Shot?!"

Nobody laughed.

"I don't have to impress you people, you know." Eddy said, frowning.

"That's good because you didn't." Lee said.

"I get it, Eddy!"

"Shut up, Ed."

Double D puffed his chest up and threw punches. "Kevin the macho fighter! He'll knock your jaw loose. Just as long as Dorko D is around…"

He turned to the hysterical audience. "You know why?"

Giggling, Nazz asked: "Why?"

"Who else is gonna tie his shoes?" Double D said, and then winked.

And that did it. Everyone was on the ground, laughing.

Kevin was nodding, grinning sheepishly. "Okay. I see how it is with you people."

Nazz wrapped her arm around him. "C'mon, Kev. You know he's just fooling."

Ed bear-hugged Double D from behind. "Double D is a fool all right!"

"I'll make it up to you, Kev." Nazz said, pinching his cheek. "What do you say?"

"I say game on, baby." Kevin kissed her. The two of them went upstairs.

Marie came up and pulled Double D down from Ed's grasp. "That was good, sweetie! So good you get a present."

They went outside.

May was there, but she was talking to another guy. Eddy and Lee had already left.

Ed sat on the couch by himself.

[4]

School went on and on, like an endless tomb. But it did have an end. And everyone sat in the auditorium, even Ed. He'd been so worried about not graduating. There had been endless crying sessions in Double D's room. But they had done it. _He_ had done it.

May was there of course. The Kanker Sisters sat in the row in front of them.

_Say something, Ed. You got to say something to her._

He opened his mouth and nearly said something. Then he remembered the principal was giving his speech.

[5]

It was over and everyone went outside and threw their hats into the air. Ed threw his so high that he didn't see it come back down.

Eddy and Lee hugged. Edd and Marie kissed.

Ed walked up to May. "Uh…hi, May."

Her face seemed to shine when he talked to her. "What's up Big Ed?"

_Say it! Say it right now! What are you afraid of?!_

"Uh…I…"

"Yeah?"

He turned and ran. He felt ashamed but it couldn't be helped.

It wasn't really fear that she would barrage him with kisses. Since her sisters had hooked up with his friends, May really hadn't done that kind of thing anymore.

It was fear that she would learn about him. That she would know who he was. And she would know who he was, and she would think he was a freak. All girls thought he was a freak. They didn't like his video games or his comic books. They didn't like his habit of pouring beef and turkey gravy over everything. In middle school, it was okay. Great even. He avoided them and they avoided him.

Then high school came, and the _feelings _came with it. Double D said it was natural for boys to have the _feelings. _He and Eddy had them too.

Ed tried to fight them off anyway, by thinking and doing anything else. More comic books, movies and endless video game sessions. He tried to think of his dad. How his wife never did anything but nag him into the ground, just like Sarah did to Ed.

But the _feelings _remained. They came with whispering thoughts and grotesque images. Naked women in his bed, asking him to hurry up so that he could give and they could receive; joining with them followed by a release so strong that it would rip him in half.

He fought back against it all. There had been back and forth, but he finally earned a draw.

[6]

And before he knew what happened, he was 25 years old. High school had been a pain in the butt, so Ed had no desire to go to college. He worked as a farmer for Rolf and his family and couldn't see himself doing much of anything else.

There was a new game that had just gotten released. Its name was Sacred Fist.

Ed wanted to play it with his best friends. But Eddy was busy doing factory stuff and had a kid with Lee now. Double D was studying at the college to get his doctorate and was going to marry Marie in a year. Kevin would rather play sports than video games. He had actually gone pro and was playing for the Packers. Nazz was working in a salon out in California. Jonny was doing activist stuff in Africa.

So Ed was basically alone in the cul-de-sac with Rolf, Jimmy and Sarah. Jimmy and Sarah were going to be graduating high school soon and they didn't like video games anyway. Nobody in Rolf's family played them. Rolf had a Gateway desktop computer so old that it overheated and turned off within 20 minutes of being on.

He saw May around from time to time, but she didn't seem to want him anymore. He had a chance with her—scratch that. He had _many _chances with her but he blew them all.

Ed saved up the money for the VR equipment and bought it. He took it to his guest room in Rolf's house. Rolf had left the TV on and there was something in the news about Sacred Fist. He turned the TV off without looking at it. He wanted to experience the game for himself.

"I'll join a clan." Ed said. "Yeah, that's it. I'll make new friends in the game. We'll have big PvP battles. We'll go on dungeon raids. It's gonna be sweet."

A sinister thought came to him: _Will they run out on me too?_

He wiped a tear from his eye.

Ed went through the instructions for the gear, got on his bed, and put the helmet on.

The race he selected was human.


	4. Lanayru

Lanayru

AN: Still not done in spite of me saying it would be done last chapter. Check. Been working on this for the past three months. Still not entirely happy with how it turned out.

[1]

"Lee?"

"Yeah?"

"I've been wondering something."

It was January and Lee had gotten back from her tour just a week ago. The two of them were in bed. Their apartment was on the outskirts of Peach Creek. The bedroom alone was half the size of their old ass trailer.

"What's that, Eddy?" Lee asked, taking the covers out from her breasts and letting her tits show.

"I remember when we met in your trailer way back when we were kids."

"What about it?"

"You and your sisters liked us from the start, right?"

Lee looked at him. "You're bringing that up now?"

Eddy smirked. "Double D's the smart one. I didn't think of it until now."

"Yeah, me and my sisters liked you guys from the start."

"I guess what I'm trying to say is why pick us at all? There are hundreds of guys in Peach Creek."

Lee just stared at him, making Eddy sweat a little. He'd gone too far and fucked up somehow. Her left arm, like Marie's right, was covered in tattoos.

"You've met my mama, right?" she asked.

"What're you talking about? Of course I have."

"When did you first meet her? When was that?"

"I dunno. Four years ago or something. No…fuck that. It was a few days after I started dating you for the first time."

"Who was she with at the time?" Lee asked. "Do you remember?"

"What? Yeah, of course I remember."

Except he had no fucking clue.

"I think his name was Gareth." Eddy said finally. "No, it was Tooles. No...Dune?"

"Keep trying, baby."

Lee, what does this shit have to do—"

"His name was Byron, and he was a fucking punk bitch. All those names you said just now, some of them felt…kinda like the right answer; right?" Lee asked.

"Yeah." Eddy said.

"That's because those were all names of one boyfriend or another. She's been through so many of them that I'm starting to forget most of them too. All of mama's boyfriends were punk bitches and they always will be. She dates bad boys because she thinks they're fun. Then they hit her, cheated on her, or stole her money to buy drugs. Then she finds out, dumps them, and bitches about all men being brain-dead pigs. Then she finds a new boyfriend and we're off to the fucking races again.

"Me and my sisters, we didn't want any of that. Then we met you three."

Lee giggled at the memory. Eddy couldn't help but smirk too.

"We knew you guys were outcasts. Ed reeked and he was a few bullets shy of a full magazine. Double D was a geek and a killjoy. And we can't forget you." Lee pinched his cheek hard.

"Ouch."

"Always running your mouth and trying to scam people. It pissed those kids off and got you clobbered more than a few times. I always liked the ones where you sold them 'food,' but it turned out it was just baseballs dipped in pink paint, or fucking rubber tires you cut up into burgers. I mean, c'mon, Eddy. How stupid did you think a 10-year-old was?"

Eddy didn't answer but just laughed.

Lee said: "You yelled at us…but then you guys tried to say sorry. Mama's boyfriends couldn't admit they were wrong about something if it meant the fucking firing squad. Yeah, the three of us would gang up on any one of you, but we always had favorites."

"No shit."

"None. Marie always talked about how she liked guys who were slobs and cheaters, but it was a fucking lie and I knew it even then. She really wanted a guy like Double D. Always trying to make sense out of nonsense, order out of chaos, always trying to make the right decision even when it wasn't easy or the cool thing to do. Sockhead being so fucking smart was just a bonus.

"May liked Ed because he was a sweetheart _and_ so damn kooky. All that weird shit he would always say, every time she laughed? That shit wasn't fake, Eddy. She always thought he was funny. Those late night B-movies and those cheap sci-fi horror comics, not to mention all those video games he likes? She likes all that stuff too. A guy like Ed would never call somebody stupid or look down on them. Him being so fucking cut was just a bonus."

"What about me?" Eddy said.

Lee turned in the bed, looking directly at him. "You? That's an easy one. You're a leader. No matter what Double D and Ed, wanted to do, you were the one calling the shots 99 times out of a 100."

"Yeah, it was. And I fucked things up all the time."

Lee shook her head. "No, you didn't. A lot of times it was because Ed broke something or Double D's invention just wasn't built too last. Those two liked to pretend that it was all on you, but they _always_ helped you, time and time again."

Eddy laughed. "You noticed that too?"

Lee smiled broadly, showing the silver tooth where her rotting blue one had been. "Yeah, I did. You all wanted the same thing back then: money for jawbreakers. Deep down, they wanted to help you even if they didn't know it, and then eventually they knew it too. I think that's what makes a great leader."

Eddy was genuinely touched.

"You being so short was just a bonus."

He cackled. "Fuck you, Lee."

"In a minute—but back to my point. Back then, I knew you were pissed off all the time. That you felt alone. Look at you now. 25 and you're one of the three managers at the factory. You're a leader _and _you're going to be something. You'll be running things at that factory before long…whether you want to admit it or not. All three of you were so fucking gorgeous, that we just couldn't help it a lot of the time."

"You don't have to apologize for that anymore." he said. "I already told you that."

"You three were beautiful because you were everything mama's boyfriends would never _ever _be. Thank you."

"Oh, shit, Lee." Eddy turned away so she wouldn't see his red face. "You're making me break out in a rash."

Lee whispered in his ear: "I'll break more than that."

They made love for the second time that night.

"What about Ed and May?" Eddy asked when they were done. "They're still trapped in that shitty VR game. According to the news, a dozen more people fucking died just this week."

"I dunno." Lee said honestly. "But I think they'll make it. The two of them are good at those kinds of games. Better than the rest of us."

"Yeah, for sure." he said. "I just wish Sockhead was a hacker with the CIA right now, instead of trying to be a surgeon."

"I wonder if they'll find each other in there." Lee said. But deep down, she thought she already knew the answer. She had Eddy to thank for that.

[2]

She was in a forest of giant trees and was already down to half health.

"Oh, crap." May said. "This ain't good."

The demons in front of her were anthromorphic monkeys with bloodshot, red eyes. They wore tattered and shredded monk garments covered with dried blood. They were called Wu Kongs, and they were vicious.

She encountered the first one and killed it after losing 50 percent of her life. Before it died, it screamed, drawing two more assholes for her to deal with.

The first one did a flying tackle, but she spaced properly and it just hit the ground in front of her. But instead of standing upright, it did a somersault on the ground and kicked at her with both feet. May blocked but the attack deleted her entire stamina bar in one hit. A guard crush! Damn! It would've been better just to dodge, or even tank the hit.

Being guard crushed meant the same thing here that it did in Dark Souls. May's hands were flung into the air and she tilted back, as if losing her balance. She was stuck in this animation for two whole seconds—a damn lifetime. The Wu Kong rolled onto its hands and launched itself into the air, flipping and kicking both feet into May's chest.

"Shit!"

She went flying back and crashed into a tree with a thunderous boom, making the whole thing shiver and shake. May fell to her knees, looked up. The first Wu Kong was racing towards her, but the second wasn't moving. She couldn't fully make it out from this distance, but there was a large ball of demon energy charging at shoulder-level and everyone knew what that meant.

The Demon Gun lanced through the gloom of the forest. May's stamina was about 30 percent, so she used it to roll out of the way.

Behind her, the giant tree exploded like a dropped glass ball, sending burnt wood chips everywhere. Advanced as the game was, with its destructible environments, they could not do damage—even if a tree fell right on top of someone's head. So May was merely blown off to the side instead of into a million pieces.

The explosion of the high-level Demon Gun was a different story. So when May was face-down on the ground, she quickly saw that she had only 15 health points. Just one more hit would do it.

The closer Wu Kong jumped high into the air. May rolled out of the way of its heavy stomp, which cracked the ground, and swept its legs out. It fell onto its back and but immediately bounced up. It looked at her…only to be looking at a knee rushing toward it like a freight train.

It popped up into the air, losing a fourth of its life with one attack. The second Wu Kong shot another Demon Gun her way. May jumped high, avoiding the shot, and did an aerial grab on the first Wu Kong. The animation played out: May grabbed its legs, spun around like an avenging whirlwind and let go. The demon slammed into another tree, cracking it in half vertically and the thing _still _wasn't dead. It's life bar was a sliver and it made her grind her teeth in frustration.

May landed neatly on the ground, looked around for harsh red light, saw it and ducked. The Demon Gun passed bare _inches_ above her head. She charged spirit energy into her finger.

"Fire!"

The Spirit Gun sent the second Wu Kong tumbling across the ground but didn't do much damage. A fourth of May's spirit gauge was used, which gave her just enough for one more shot. She fired again, this time at the first Wu Kong. It had fallen from the tree and was slowly getting up. It tried to dodge by jumping in the air.

It might have made it but jumped too late. May's Spirit Gun _also _had AOE and the blast clipped the demon's legs and tail. Only 20 points of damage but it was enough. The bastard immediately died and ragdolled, spinning through the air, flipping over and over as it began to disintegrate.

"One more to go." May said. But that was easier said than done. It had taken some damage from the Spirit Gun but that still left 100 points of damage she still needed to give it.

That's when she realized she was glowing with red, demonic energy. She glanced down. Black, tattoos of eldritch design were spreading all over her body. A slow grin spread across her face. She had leveled up. She had reached level 25 and discovered her demonic power.

[3]

The Wu Kong was still charging toward her. But she knew how to assign points on the fly.

When it was done, her stats were this:

Vitality: 250 LP

Strength: 70.

Speed: 45

Defense: 59.

Balance: 62

Demon (formerly Spirit): 350 SP.

Focus: 45.

Harmony: 60

Purity: 30

Melting: 55

Particle: 72

Soul: Chaotic Neutral.

Not the most balanced spread. Her Spirit Defense was jacked so high because she knew for a fact that high-level enemies had Spirit attacks that could kill a player in one hit. Spirit regen was also high thanks to the rarity of Arcane Talismans even after three patches. Purity was a different story. Antidotes were dropped like confetti, and the "item use" animation for that one was pretty quick anyway. Strength was obvious. Some people said that it negatively scaled with Balance but she wasn't convinced. She hated getting staggered by anything that wasn't a charged heavy attack, so high Balance too.

[4]

It was a pleasant surprise, but she wasn't in the clear by any stretch.

The Wu Kong was charging at her from long distance. Enemy bots had Spirit Gauges too, and their Spirit regen left all player characters completely in the dust, even the lucky few who were full demons. That left May with perhaps a minute to defeat this guy before it could get another Demon Gun off on her.

When it closed the gap, the Wu Kong tried a jump kick. May dove to one side, and immediately attacked once she was on her feet. Dodge-attacks took the form of a lunge, in her case a lunge kick.

The kick knocked the Wu Kong on its ass. It immediately bounced back up, screaming at her.

"Sure, champ." she whispered, low and deadly. "Whatever you say."

Her stamina was at 70 percent or so. She wanted to get it increase to 80 percent, but the Wu Kong was having none of it. It did a flying spin kick. May ducked and did a spin kick of her own, catching it in the balls…if mutated monkey demons _had _balls.

It seemed like they didn't. The Wu Kong slammed into the ground, rolling over, but it got right back up again. It had 55 health points left.

May glanced around. No new hostiles.

A scream from in front of her as the fucker charged again. This time, it threw punches. Fast, quick, balanced punches that didn't throw it off balance, which was the case with lower-level enemies. Bone Conscripts did that kind of thing a LOT, and people made games getting Conscripts to lunge-swing themselves off of cliffs.

May spaced the Wu Kong's first three punches. She kicked at its torso. The kick was grabbed. The Wu Kong swung her around once and let go. She tumbled across the ground. Once she got right side-up, she saw the demon in the air, doing an elbow drop.

She had 60 stamina. Enough to roll out of the way. There was a cracking blast as another large crater was put in the ground.

She immediately scrambled to her feet but the Wu Kong made it first. It did three kicks. She spaced them, and jumped over the final leg sweep with a spinning jump kick that caught the demon in the face. It somersaulted into the ground.

It had 35 health points left.

"C'mon." she breathed. "C'mon you little little turd. Show me what you got."

It flipped back onto its feet. It back flipped away from her. There was a brief red flash in its eyes, and everyone knew what that meant. May thought she would have more time.

"Damn it!" she yelled and raced toward it.

The Wu Kong stuck the landing and raised its fingers in the gun gesture. Demon energy pulsed on its pointing finger.

May made it in time to grab the arms for a forward throw. The demon gun charge up was negated as the throw animation played out—May kneed the Wu Kong twice in the gut, making it buckle over only to get a knee to the forehead. It fell on its ass again. It began to rise slowly, meaning it was running out of health.

May dashed toward it and did her dash attack, a flying double kick. Her feet planted directly in the bastard's chest while it was still standing up.

The Wu Kong flew into a tree, cracking it but not breaking it. It fell to the ground. It stood up, stumbled around in a daze, coughed up a river of blood and then fell over, turning to ash.

[5]

She looked around, half-dazed her own damn self. Nothing else around her. She put on squad chat.

"Red? You there?"

No response from BigRedGun. She'd gotten separated from everyone.

"BigRed. Are you there?! Vodka? Hello?!"

All too late, opened up the squad menu in the top left, and checked squad health.

BigRedGun's health bar was depleted. So was WhittakerFlightVodka..

They were gone.

May crumbled to her knees.

"Damn it!" she cried out, tears welling in her eyes. "Shit!"

She pounded the ground uselessly. Pounded until her hand hurt and she started taking scratch damage.

[6]

"See anything?" Bates asked. He was a short human with bald hair, and an orange gi, so that he looked as much like Krillin from DBZ as he could.

The two of them were at Ruto Hill, which overlooked Lanaryu Castle from the west.

"You've got your own scope, Bates." May finally answered.

"It's more fun like this." Bates answered.

"Shut up, Bates."

MasterBates247 laughed at that, but it wasn't funny. Red and Vodka had been dead for weeks, and she still wasn't okay with it.

Bates saw she was near tears. "Okay, Love. I'm sorry."

"It's fine." May said, even though it really wasn't.

"Now for God's sakes, can you just tell me what you see?"

She looked through the scope again.

"Soulless Snipers sittin' on the castle walls."

"Fuck those guys."

"Yeah."

Soulless Snipers had a human-like body, but with armed scales instead of skin. They had nothing below the waist, so they moved around on their long-ass arms when passive. When they spotted someone, they took to the air with their large, feathered wings. They were a _huge _pain in the ass to fight. They almost never landed, which meant you either needed a ranged weapon yourself (which were very rare) or enough Spirit to take them down.

Their sight range was freakin' stupid too. The closest one was about 80 yards away. It saw them anyway and took flight. The demon had a massive, tattooed eye on its chest. It glowed bright red, and fired a large Demon Cannon at them.

Bates stepped forward, put his hands up and said, "Shield!"

A blue dome barrier surrounded them. The Demon Cannon crashed into it and bounced into the sky. At the same time, the barrier was shattered immediately, throwing Bates into the ground.

May threw a stamina potion at him to get him up faster. Then they fled.

[7]

(Weeks later)

"We got the plan, people?" the full demon asked.

Everyone nodded. DragonFiteClub sat in a large circle around a campfire. The fire was blue. It had Soylent Divine Incense thrown in it. SD Incense made an invisible bubble around the campfire, so that no enemy NPCs could walk through. Their energy attacks couldn't penetrate the bubble either. After 12 hours of game-time, the incense was all burned up and the fire would turn red again.

"Let's run through it again, just to be sure." the demon said.

Everybody groaned. There were a few scattered "C'mon, Dragon" and "Give me a fucking break."

"Don't give me that shit!" AngryDragon50k said. "You know what's gonna happen if we fuck this up. So people, what's the game plan?"

"Me, Hare and Aphro are on defense." Bates said. PullMyHare10x, Aphr0dite and MasterBates had the highest Particle stats of the group. Their Demon Barriers (or Spirit Barrier in Bates' case) would last the longest, which was still none too long. Hare was a tall Korean woman with a silver cloak. Aphro was a black woman with…an afro as well as leather armor.

"Hornet and me…as well as you, Dragon, are on the attack." Nine said. SuperHornetPill, 9NiceFacials, and AngryDragon were full demons, so they were naturally the heaviest hitters. They had more than a passing resemblance to the Annabelle Demon with black scales and horns. Their horns were so big, they might as well have been antlers. Thanks to Tumor and his "anti-illusion spell" their faces didn't have the bony ridges or pointy nose that they should have had. Instead it was their normal, human features and even their skin color. All three of them were white. Nine had a blind eye that looked off in some wonky direction.

"LoveMachine and I are gonna take out the Soulless Snipers." Mommy said. I_ll_be_yourmommy was a Japanese guy from Michigan with dreadlocks. He wore purple clothes from the Rag Tag set, making him look like Piccolo. Mommy and May were the best shots on the team. Mommy was a full human. In the six months she'd known him, May had seen him make ridiculous shots with his Spirit Gun. His Melting stat was very good too, at 82.

"So it's all straight then." Dragon said.

"At least as far as the entrance." Nine said. "We have no idea what happens after."

"It ain't gonna be good." May said. "We gotta stick together. No matter what."

"It would be a little easier if you guys were all half-demons." Hornet said.

Mommy waved his hand in disgust. "Oh, shut that shit up, asshole. You've been fucking saying that since I got here."

"I never hear the end of it either." Bates said angrily. "Because we were apparently supposed to know that we'd be stuck here."

"You _should _have known that the devs were lying about Sacred Energy." Hornet said.

"Guys…" Dragon muttered, rubbing his horned head with one clawed hand.

"It's not a lie, douchebag!" Mommy said. "We just haven't seen it yet!"

"Guys!"

Hornet just smirked at them. "What level are you guys, huh? 40 on both of you, right? Halfies get their demon energy by now."

"Enough!" Dragon's eyes glowed red. When he shouted, his voice was booming. "We are NOT going to start fucking fighting before we're even through the fucking front door. This is serious shit, and if you all are going to screw it up, lemme know! I'll fucking kill you and take your shit and build another team! FUCK WITH ME AND SEE IF I'M LYING!"

He could too. He was 10 full levels higher than any of them. Hornet and Nine were too.

That shut everyone up. They ate food in silence, getting their health up. Then slept.

They woke up, destroyed the campfire, then started walking.

[8]

On the way there, they encountered another group. These poor fools were all humans and called themselves the Psychonauts. They must have been siblings or family members or something, because they had a ridiculous theme naming thing going on. One guy was named DSThing1; the other, DSThing2. The leader was CatInAHat. None of them saw FiteClub coming.

May protested like she usually did. Nobody listened like they usually did. After all, CatInAHat had a pretty nice bo staff on his back. It shined with spiritual energy.

And after all, how did they know for sure if people were dying from this game on the outside? It wasn't like they had any contact with the outside world.

This whole fiasco would be a year old in a week and two days. 5,000 people had already died and if they were really dead on the outside as well, then that made Xe Tang Le, the developer, a serial killer. If people found him, he would be given a guaranteed life sentence at the very least. It just didn't make sense that a developer would do something like that. Sacred Fist had taken off like a rocket ship. Why not just take the money and get the bitches?

Of course, the whole issue of dead people never respawning back in the world could be easily explained. It was like that sci-fi choose-your-own-adventure book Dragon had read when he was a kid. In it, some brat gets this mysterious cartridge game at a pawn shop or something. When the brat turned it on, he's briefed by mission control that he has only a few hours to save Earth from a world-buster or something like that. One of the choices in the book has the brat going off with his mother to get groceries. The brat comes back from the store, turns the game back on, and he's greeted with nothing but an exploding Earth. Every time he turns the game back on, that exploding Earth is the only thing he sees. There's only one chance to beat the game and the kid blew it. This game was like that. Most likely, the people were just ejected back into consciousness again, and their $400 Synapse Gear was now an expensive brick. Nothing else.

Few of the Fite Club members believed him. May saw it in their eyes. Probably Dragon saw it too. It didn't matter. He was still the boss. He was still in charge.

So FiteClub took them down. All three of them. They begged for their lives. Dragon wasn't interested in any of it. This wasn't Skyrim. There was no sneaking, no illusion charms, no stealth mode and stealing mechanic. Anything a player had was bound to them, and you could not take it from them until they were dead.

May watched. A single tear ran down her eye.

"How did they even make it so far?" Aphro asked.

"It doesn't matter." Nine said. "We need all the loot we can get." But she still sounded sad about the whole thing. She always did.

"Fucking full-humans." Hornet grunted. "Where's your Sacred Energy now, huh?"

Mommy and Bates said nothing in response.

"That's enough." Dragon said distantly. "Grab their shit."

Hare took it.

[9]

Castle Lanayru was a lot like many castles in movies and video games: it was surrounded by a moat. The moat itself was Red Water, which was toxic. If you got knocked in, you had maybe 10 seconds before your life bar was completely gone.

A person with mermaid armor and multiple items that stacked poison resist could probably travel up the waterfall on the west wall. A person could glide from the Impa Cliffs north of the castle if they had a divine cloak.

Fite Club had none of that. Fortunately, the front of the castle had a sturdy stone bridge with fencing.

The entrance to Castle Lanayru was guarded by Wu Kongs. Together, FiteClub took them out with few issues, although a couple health potions were used. The bodies were looted, giving them a few health potions.

"Okay." Nine breathed. "We're doing fine. We're doing just fine."

The only thing in front of them now was the front door to the main grounds of the castle.

"Remember the plan." Dragon said.

"Dragon, we remember the plan for the millionth fucking time." Mommy said.

They opened the door.

[10]

Three minutes later, May was up against a wall and she had only 30 health points left.

"Mary and Joseph." she slurred.

A strong attack from a Ronin Ogre had knocked her against one of the castle walls. Which meant she would be dazed for three whole fucking seconds.

Her eyes cleared. In front of her, the castle grounds were a charred landscape. And it turned out she didn't have much to worry about because the three Ronin Ogres on the field were too busy murdering the rest of her team. They were nine feet tall. Their green samurai armor was rusted and cracking and falling off in places…which didn't make it any less durable. Their eyes were small red dots in their sunken faces.

It was like a grotesque slasher film was playing out in front of her.

May watched as Aphro was completely sliced in two by a massive downward swing. She was able to scream once before turning into dust.

"No." May whispered.

On her right, the second Ronin Ogre was crushing Nine into the ground with its feet. She didn't have a chance to scream at all.

Hornet was killed when the third Ogre kicked him into the wall hard enough to make a crater.

"No."

Mommy tried firing a Spirit Gun at the third Ogre. It answered back by opening its mouth and firing a Demon Cannon. It wasn't even close. The beams didn't collide. The red beam swallowed up the blue one. Mommy's face was a still image of horror. Then he was consumed in an explosion.

"No!" May screamed, standing up now.

Hare attacked the third Ogre from behind with the bo staff. She did a powerful thrust right into its butt. The Ogre was staggered…for all of one single second. It spun around—_so _much faster than it had any right to be—and did a massive swing with its changdao at the same time.

Hare blocked with the staff, and her guard was immediately crushed. The Ogre wasn't done. It slung its two-hander over its shoulder with one hand and grabbed Hare with the other.

May screamed: "My God, no!" She charged a Demon Gun. But the light at the tip of her pointer finger was so damned tiny.

She saw that the Demon meter wasn't just low but completely empty. Not even a hint of red was in that bar. She'd spent it all getting rid of the four Snipers that had surrounded them a minute ago. Quite a few misses, and she had no Spirit Flasks to spare now.

May tried anyway. "Fire!"

Nothing happened. Of course.

She screamed the words again and again. "Fire, God damn it!"

But she could scream it for another three hours and it wouldn't matter.

The Ogre raised Hare up high. She screamed for mercy. The Ogre slammed her into the ground hard enough to make a small earthquake. Hare didn't just turn into dust. She exploded.

May felt helpless. She felt useless. All the punching and kicking and martial arts shit she had done. All the level-grinding and training. All the time she spent here. None of it mattered. None of it mattered at all. This wasn't a game. This was just like real life. Oh yeah, she was a real good fighter when beating up those wimps who used to live in the cul-de-sac.

But then push comes to shove and something _really_ bad happens. A nutcase older brother beats his little brother into the ground. One of Mama's boyfriends gives her a black eye. And everyone else is fighting and getting hurt, while May just stands there with…not just a thumb in her ass, or two thumbs, but the whole fucking hand.

Why couldn't she do this? Why couldn't she freaking help?!

Dragon was now fighting the first Ogre, flipping through the air once and planting both feet into its chest. He was down to half health and the same now went for the Ogre he just kicked.

"Love!" Bates called out. He dashed toward her, sliding under a Demon Cannon shot. "We gotta get out of here!"

"Huh?" May said. She felt somewhat dazed. Like she was in a nightmare. The Ogre that killed Hare was marching towards them.

"We are leaving!" Bates shouted. Sweat ran down his frantic face. "Dragon's gonna hold them off, give us time to bounce outta here!"

He grabbed her by the wrist. "Let's go!"

They ran towards the gate. A great rushing sound came towards them. They looked, expecting to see a charging Ogre. What they got instead was Dragon being thrown at them, going as fast as a jetliner.

Bates and May said "Shit" and then they were thrown against one of the walls. May took 20 damage from Dragon crashing into her and another from hitting the wall.

Five points left. She wasn't even hanging by a thread. She was hanging by an atom. Bates had only 14 health points before, and now he turned to dust before her eyes.

"No!" she cried.

Just her and Dragon left and he was flat on his face.

May slowly got up. The Ronin Ogres were nearly on top of her. They would attack long before she or Dragon were back in neutral stance. His rising animation hadn't even started yet.

A beam of golden light struck the first Ogre. It blew a massive hole in the demon, which then went catapulted through the air.

May looked around. She didn't see anyone else in the castle grounds.

Another gold beam killed the second Ogre. It plainly came from beyond the entrance doorway they were next to. She couldn't see the shooter from this angle.

He came walking through the doorway, glowing with golden Spirit energy May had never seen before.


	5. Sacred Fist

Sacred Fist

AN: Finally back at it. Honestly this last chapter was a struggle, more so than any chapter in the little Self vs Self mini-series. Even with quarantine, I found it difficult to get in the mood to write this at first. Still, I don't like to leave things unfinished if I can help it, and this is hardly an epic story. Once I got into it, it became much easier, though I felt like I was rushing at the end.

I know I don't go into a lot of detail with Lanayru Castle. It's basically Hyrule Castle from Breath of the Wild. There you go.

[1]

May thought: It's_ him! It's him! It's him! It's him! It's him! It's him! It's him! It's him! It's him! It's him!_

[2]

When Baron0BeefDip walked through the gate, he noticed the demon before the halfie. He walked in like a member of a SWAT team, hand shaped like a gun, turning it this way and that in case there were any more enemies.

There weren't.

He put his hand down and stopped glowing. He wore a simple green gi that looked a lot like his old jacket.

Baron looked around for his friends. They weren't there. Where the hell were they?

A growing heavy pit formed in his stomach. He was starting to fear the worst.

He noticed the demon first. An easy grin spread across his face, and he raised a hand. "Hello!"

The demon stared at him. He was quite the grotesque mutant. All demons were ugly but it was their Souls that were the problem.

Still, his mom always told him to try and make friends.

"Hello!" he said, much louder than he wanted to. He held up one hand, like he was trying to get ahold of a cab.

The demon did not answer. He looked like the bad guy from the Annabelle movies. The one in the doll that looked so damn creepy. Of course it was haunted people!

_Focus Ed. _

The voice of Double D, doing what he usually did, getting him back on track. Because Baron was _drifting _again, getting lost in memories and not paying attention to what was in front of him. It had gotten worse since this game. A lot of things had gotten worse since this game. That's why he had to get out.

"My name is Baron!" he said, because he always felt a little silly saying the whole title.

The demon just stared at him. His eyes weren't narrow, like he was angry. They were wide, like he was desperate. Baron already knew that it was going to be a fight. Still, he kept in his neutral stance, because he really wanted to give the guy a chance.

"I want that flask." the demon said.

Baron smiled. That wasn't too bad. The guy was talking about the health flask on his belt. Sacred Fist worked like a combo of Dark Souls and Resident Evil 6 (the only main game in the series he honestly didn't like too much). You found herbs in the wild and mixed them up. Done with that, you then put the contents into your health flask, which gave them more healing charges.

Baron reached down to get the flask for him. The good thing about being human is that you could be good and lawful whenever you wanted.

"Ed?" the half-demon asked.

For a moment, he didn't think the girl—and it was a girl—was talking to him. How long had it been since he had been called that? Sure, he'd met a few people with _Ed_ or _Eddie _in their gamertags. Sometimes he would turn his head at the name, only to remember he was Baron0BeefDip. He hadn't been called that name in about a year, if not a bit longer. The half-demon was probably talking to the demon. Sure the demon's name was AngryDragon, but they could have been on a real name basis with each other.

Then the half-demon said, "Holy shit, Big Ed, is that really you?" And now he _did_ turn his head. Because what were the odds that this man was also nicknamed Big Ed on the outside? That the half-demon knew this too? A long shot, that's what Eddy would call it.

He turned his head and it took him so long to realize it was May Kanker. Sure, the red eyes and horns threw you off a little bit, but it was still May. Same freckles, same cute little buck teeth, same blonde hair that went down to the shoulders.

_It's her._

He hadn't given up hope of seeing the outside world. He never gave up hope of beating the game. But he never thought any of his cul-de-sac friends would be in here, especially now that people knew the whole game was a trap. Then again, based on the rumors around the cul-de-sac, May had started playing tons of video games as well.

"May? That's really you?" he asked.

She opened her mouth to answer. Then AngryDragon let out a massive roar as he charged forward.

May did the "Hold On a Sec" emote, which made her raise a weak hand. "Dragon wait!"

Dragon did a dashing shoulder charge. Ed easily sidestepped to the right.

"Stop!" Ed shouted, but his fists were up. He was ready to do battle.

"Give me the fucking flask, bitch!" Dragon yelled. He did two roundhouse punches. Ed ducked under both of them. Dragon did a spinning jump kick and. Ed easily backed up, out of range.

"Dragon, stop! He's gonna give you the stupid flask!"

But Dragon was a stubborn prick and once he got an idea in his head, he was going to follow that road all the way to the bottomless pit. Wasn't that a good summary of today? He was the boss. He was in charge. People would do as he said or suffer the consequences.

Two more spinning kicks, which were easily dodged. Now Dragon was getting low on stamina. Ed wasn't attacking at all, just kept his fists up in order to block.

May jumped between them. Her Demon energy wasn't even closed to charged yet, but she did a Shield anyway. Of course, it didn't make one. But it made her stretch her arms to the side.

"Enough." May said. "Let's talk about—"

Dragon punched her square in the face. He did it with no real stamina behind the punch and his bar emptied out anyway. May's health bar, which had only barely regenerated a tick or two, went to 3 health. May went tumbling down.

"MAY!" Ed shrieked. His right hand came up in a flash, the pointer finger glowing with yellow light.

It didn't make sense that Dragon's eyes would bug out of his head. Not here in this game. But they did. They were like little moon-globes in his head. Dragon's mouth opened to say something.

Then the Sacred Gun fired and it was over. Dragon flew into the wall actually cracking it. Ed hadn't even known they could be damaged like that. The demon fell face-first on the ground. He went through one of the unique the death animations: actually crawling forward an inch or two before disappearing.

"Damn it." Ed whispered. "I'm sorry."

Even though the guy attacked him first. Demons, man. He would never completely understand why they were like this. He knew part of it was the game, giving them so much power so quickly. Absolutely power corrupts absolutely—didn't Double D say that to him one time? But he thought another part of it was just people wanting to be cruel.

He turned around and gave May the health flask.

[3]

She drank it without saying anything. The golden-brown liquid in the flask went to half-full. Her life bar went to 80 percent.

"May, you all right?" he asked. The two of them stills sat in the courtyard. The area was quiet and still.

She didn't look at him. She didn't answer. Her head was staring down at the ground.

"May?" he repeated. He didn't want to bug her, but he had to make sure she was okay. He _needed _to.

May looked at him at last. "You killed Dragon."

Ed swallowed a lump in his throat. "Yeah. I'm sorry. He hit you."

She immediately stood up. The flask had raised her Demon gauge to about half. She charged a Demon Gun and pointed it at him.

Ed seized her hand in a throwing move. The red light of the Demon Energy turned his face crimson before the grab animation made the light fade away. "Don't do it."

May's left hand snapped down on his grabbing hand, teching the throw. She pushed him away, following it up with a kick that he blocked. This was pointless. She even knew it. This yellow energy he had. It was Sacred Energy. She knew it was. He instantly clobbered two demons that had nearly wiped her entire squad. This wouldn't help anything. This wouldn't bring them back. But she hated him, standing there with his green gi and his red hair and his slight acne.

"He was my friend, you asshole!"

Ed blocked two of her light kicks.

"He was a bully." he said.

"My friend!" she repeated. He ducked under her spinning roundhouse.

"He wasn't."

"He was."

"He wasn't!"

"He _was, _May!" Ed shouted. "He was beating you down just like Edmond did to Eddy in that park and—"

"That's got nothing to do with this!" May shouted. She charged a kick with Demon Energy. He parried by putting Sacred Energy into his hand and chopping lightly at her foot, launching her into the air.

She flipped onto her feet. She dashed in on him. "Fight back you…you _coward!_"

"I'm not gonna fight you." he said calmly. "I don't wanna hurt you. I care about you."

May shook her head. "You don't give a shit about me. You never did."

"That's not true." Ed said, with great difficulty. The next words were even more difficult. She could see his face twist and contort. Whatever he was trying to say and trying itself to remain hidden. "I always did…because I love you."

"_Fuck you_!" she screamed. She slugged him with a left hook. This knocked him down on his ass.

She towered over him, eyes wide and frantic and already tearing up. "Fifteen years, Ed! I met you fifteen fucking years ago! And _now _you want to say that bullshit to _me? _When we're trapped in a fucking video game?!"

She did a low kick. He rolled out of the way. She did a high-kick. He countered by grabbing the leg and sweeping the other one out from under her. She countered _that _by taking the swept foot and hooking it around his head, sending them both to the ground. Ground combat now. Something she wasn't specced in. From the looks of things, he wasn't either. The two of them were just tangled with each other on the floor, like a bunch of drunks at a Christmas party who tripped over each other.

"I'm sorry!" Ed said. He rolled on top of her. "I should have told you sooner!"

"Shut up!" She struggled against his grip.

"I love you! I did this whole time!"

"SHUT UP!"

"Ever since you kept our friends from beating up Jonny!"

That made her stop.  
_Jonny learned his lesson. _

No…that made her freeze.

_So for once, can we avoid settling a conflict with violence._

For a long while, they just lay there on the cold ground, empty and still and hateful. She hated this courtyard, and she was so tired.

When she finally spoke, May didn't meet his eyes. They gazed at the cloud-filled sky. "Big Ed, do you even understand…what it felt like…waiting for you to finally say those words to me?"

[4]

These were his stats.

Level

Vitality: 400 LP

Strength: 80.

Speed: 75

Defense: 89.

Balance: 72

Sacred (formerly Spirit): 350 SP.

Focus: 75.

Harmony: 90

Purity: 50

Melting: 85

Particle: 72

Soul: Neutral Good

[5]

"Get off me." she ordered.

"Can we talk now?" he asked.

"I said let me go."

There was no _letting_ _go_ in this game, only releasing the grab that put you in the grounded animation to begin with. Ed stopped trying to overpower her. May's legs automatically planted into his chest and pushed him off.

They both stood up. There was an emote to wipe dirt and blood and stuff like that off their clothes, and they both used it. She still couldn't look at him. "Why didn't you tell me all this before?"

"I'm sorry. I was too scared."

"Course you were scared, you big baby." May huffed. Dear God, there was such anger in her voice, such _spite_. "Because girls have cooties and germs, right?"

He laughed. A low, rumbling, belly laugh. "Don't be such a butthead, May."

That was so stupid, that made her so mad, she actually laughed. "Butthead?! Who are you callin' a butthead?!"

"I already know that cooties aren't real." he said. "And I know that you don't wanna just kiss-attack me anymore."

I just thought that you wouldn't like me. That's what it was."

May's tone was calm and even now. "Why the hell would you think that?"

"I dunno. I just thought—"

"Thought what?" she asked. "That no matter what you said or what you did for them, the person just wasn't going to like you?"

"Yeah." Ed said sadly.

"I _did_ like you. I still like you."

He looked up, eyes wide and hopeful. "Really?"

"Yeah. Why shouldn't I?" May said. "You're just like me."

"What do you mean?"

May said. "For as long as I can remember, my sisters said I was the nice one. Lee was always the one coming up with the plans and Marie was always eager to join in. When that wasn't happening, and we were being difficult to each other, it was always my sisters picking on me. One time, they said they were going to put makeup on me, make me look pretty for you."

"Yeah, and they put junkfood on your face instead." Ed said. He learned about that story from Double D.

May nodded. "I never did anything like that to them. I never pulled any pranks on them like that. They would be bitches to me sometimes and sometimes I would fight back but most times I didn't. That's just like you. The only time you ever knocked around your friends on purpose was when you got a pebble in your shoe."

"I was being such a butthole."

Ed's habit of childish insults instead of actual profanity was funny even now. She giggled a little. "Yeah, you were, but Eddy hit you more than you ever hit him…or anyone else for that matter."

May kept going: "I know about your hobbies. The comics you're into. Evil Tim, Evil Dead, DC, Marvel. The video games you play, VR just like this game. You even do building sets. I thought only Double D was into that kind of stuff anymore. But, no, you do it too."

"It's kid-stuff." he said.

"What's wrong with that?" she asked. "Most all of the problems in the world come from adults. Adults are the ones killing people every day, because of the way they look or what God they believe in. Maybe we should be more like kids."

Ed said nothing.

"And you know something else?"

"What?"

She grinned at him. "All that kid stuff you like, I like it too."

A big grin spread across Big Ed's face. "Really?"

"A month before I was trapped in here, I made a Imperial Star Destroyer."

"I made a Death Star the week before all this Sacred Fist stuff went down." Ed said.

"Out of LEGOS?" she asked.

"Yup!"

"Me too!" May said, smiling. "That way, if it comes apart when you drop it on the floor, you can just throw it back together, no problem!"

"And I did both those things a lot!" Ed said.

The both of them laughed. None of it was really that funny, but it was a relief, talking to her like this.

Then she asked: "You here with a clan, Big Ed?"

"Not a real clan." Ed said. "Just a small group of people I became friends with."

"Are they around?" she asked.

"Haven't seen them in a day or so." He looked around. "I'm starting to get worried."

"How many in the clan?" she asked. Probably 10 or so was her guess.

"Just three." Ed said. He'd stood up at this point.

May's smile started to fade. "Half-demons…right?"

"Nope." he said. "Full-humans just like me. They were—May…what's wrong?"

"Names?"

"Huh?"

She finally turned to face him and she looked horrified. "What were their names? The names of your people?"

"They did a theme-naming thing."

"What was the theme?" she asked. Her voice seemed far away.

"Dr. Seuss." Ed said. "Their names were CatInAHat, Thing1 and Thing2."

May fell to her knees. Her head jerked away from Ed like she was suddenly afraid of him.

Ed frowned at her. "May, what's the matter?"

Slowly, slightly tearing up, May began to speak. "I'm so sorry, Big Ed. My clan, they found those people at a campsite. Dragon wanted their stuff."

"Dead?" he asked softly.

Not looking at him, staring at the ground, hands covering her face, she nodded. Strong arms wrapped around her and she tensed up, but he was just hugging her with an emote.

"It's not your fault." he said.

"How do you know that?" May said weakly.

Even though it should have been impossible, she was damn sure she _felt _him hug even tighter.

He said: "It's just like you said, May. We're the same."

[6]

They opened the door in the back of the entrance courtyard. The massive castle spread out before them. What happened, happened at once, for everybody in the game. It made players look up in the sky in horror.

It became night in an instant. The sky had been steel-gray with clouds just a few minutes ago. Now, it was pitch black. Where the sun had been shining, now the moon sat. It looked impossibly large, slightly red. Then, they heard a voice. It was merry, and carefree. The sound was like tingling bells. It made their blood run cold.

_What's this? What do I hear?_

Both Ed and May stopped moving.

_I spy…I spy with my little eye…someone in my castle. _

Childlike laughter. May shivered.

_This game is like a dream. Don't you know that? It's like my dream and I never want to wake up. Two of you are in my Bedroom. Don't you want to stay in my dream? If I wake up, every single one of you will die. Is that what you want?_

"She's not telling the truth." Ed said.

"I sure hope so." May said.

[7]

The final boss of Lanayru Castle, as everyone knew at this point, was in the Sanctum. The Sanctum sat directly in the center of the castle grounds, at the end of the main path.

"Are you sure about this, May?"

"I can handle myself, big boy."

He shrugged his shoulder and they started up the path. It was a winding path, that went up the castle grounds in a wide spiral. On the way up they encountered:

10 Possessed Turrets, ususally on a legal overlooking the path. You could best shield with them by using a Demon Shield—or Sacred Shield in Ed's case—to send their Demon Gun right back at them.

10 Wu Kongs.

3 Ronin Ogres, thankfully these assholes only showed up one at a time.

8 Soulless Snipes flying all over the place and sniping like the complete assholes they were known to be.

4 Blind Boxers, which had to be fought in pairs. Boxers fought similar to Wu Kongs but only used martial arts—with zero Spirit or Demon abilities of any sort.

As well as numerous weaker enemies. Bone Samurai deserved special mention. They were the upgraded version of Bone Soldiers, and they littered the castle grounds like dandelions. But at this point, they were so weak that even May could one-shot them with almost _any _combat move.

Watching Big Ed fight was a thing of beauty. His martial art was basically traditional European-pugilism, with lots of punching and weaving around an area, with _very _few kicks thrown in. He could obviously use basic stuff like a Sacred-version of the Spirit Gun. But he could also put the Sacred Energy into his attack moves. Usually, doing such a thing with Spirit Energy would just make the attack stronger, like EX-moves in Street Fighter. But the Sacred Energy would always form a projectile at the end of the attack too. A large yellow orb; it moved very slow when it was like that. It was like Lucario's "Spirit Bomb" move in Project M. Or like the super move from that "psycho boxer" in Street Fighter 5, named Ed, funnily enough. The super moved so slow that Psycho Boxer Ed could move forward, jump over you, and push you into the move. There was no dash-shoving in this game but you could grab an enemy and throw them into the projectile. Sacred Energy was warm. Whenever it passed by her, her skin would tingle, and goosebumps would pop all over her skin. It even seemed to _pulse, _like a heartbeat.

But maybe that was just her imagination.

In between battles, she asked him once, "What's that style called?"

"Sacred Fist." Ed said happily.

Of course it was.

[8]

Closer and closer to the Sanctum. And it may have been just their imaginations, but the moon seemed to be growing bigger, closer...

Redder.

"Big Ed…"

"Yeah, I see it too." he said. "Did a timer show up on your HUD?"

She spun towards him, startled. "What? A timer? No, did you—"

He shook his head, "Nuh-uh. Just asking."

"You think that nutcase would make this whole thing a timed mission? You know, starting from when we went through the courtyard doors?"

Shaking his head again, he said. "You make a timed mission, you got to put a timer on the screen. Either that or give the person so much time, that the only way they could fail it is if they waste time on purpose, like giving Richard the serum in Resident Evil 1."

"We don't wanna waste any time anyway, okay?"

"You bet."

Even as they talked, it seemed to grow larger.

At last, they stood in front of the Sanctum, a massive column erupting from the ground. There was no door here, just a massive archway. They could look inside a bit.

"I don't suppose this would be the place?" May said sarcastically.

Ed played along. "Nah, doesn't look important. Not at all."

They chuckled a bit. It wasn't funny—not really—but it was either that or losing their minds. The end was in sight, but the sight wasn't at all pretty.

The Sanctum's walls and floors were jet black. The only hint of the former were the demonic runes drawn all across it. Occasionally, a rune flashed red with demonic energy, followed by another one. There was no pattern or rhythm to this that they could tell. The floor was so dark that neither of them were even sure it was there. The light from the runes didn't reach. At the opposite side of the Sanctum, a figure huddled in front of an immense shrine. She was bathed in pale-red moonlight coming from a hole in the ceiling. She was saying something. They couldn't hear what it was.

"You ready, May?" he asked.

She gave him a sweet smile. "Fuck no. But let's do it anyway."

They went in.

[9]

They thought a cutscene would play out once they passed through the archway. It didn't happen.

They could hear what she was saying now. The Princess of the Moon spoke horrible, alien things that neither one of them could understand. It was Void Speak, the Low Tongue. The Language of Death and Emptiness. Only full-demons could understand the words.

They were in the middle of the room when The Princess stopped speaking. She glanced briefly over her shoulder, and stood up.

"A 402 days, 17 hours, 24 minutes, and 9 seconds." The Princess said. "That's how long we've all been asleep. That's how long it's taken you to reach me. What did you dream of, I wonder? Did you have any nightmares?"

"Are you…" Ed began. "Are you Xe Tang Le?"

She turned around but did not answer his question. The Princess of the Moon was a child in size and shape. Her jet-black hair flowed freely around her shoulders, with two white horns poking out from under it. She wore a white kimono with red trim. She had no pupils, only solid, dark chips for eyes. She had scales instead of skin, as pale-white as her dress. They shimmered in the moonlight. She was barefoot.

"I thought people would give up." the Princess said. "I thought people would be happy to stay in the dream with me. I was nothing on the outside. In school, kids would throw me into lockers and trashcans. In here, I can do amazing things. So can everyone else. They can things they could never do on the outside. Here on the inside, in the dream, we can all be superheroes."

She turned to look at Ed now.

"Especially you, Baron. Look at what you've done, what you've accomplished. The first full human to reach level 40. The first human to discover Sacred Energy. You have not even come close to understanding the depths of its power. With that power, you can be the greatest superhero of all."

"I used to wanna be a superhero." Ed said quietly. "Not anymore. The only thing I want is to see my family again. _All _of them. I want to spend time with May on the outside."

He grabbed her hand.

"I want to wake up." he said to the Princess.

And that made May love him even more.

[10]

The Princess of the Moon started to laugh. No longer talking, she laughed and laughed and laughed.

"May, get ready." Ed said.

The demon hunched over, trembling. Veins popped out on her temples. Her kimono exploded as her body expanded into a hulking form. The filed nails of The Princess lengthened into claws. Her childlike face contorted and stretched into a feral grimace. The horns stretched into antlers. Now, the size of a trailer; defined, powerful muscles rippled under scales that no longer shimmered. The demon slowly stepped forward. At the same time, her new name finally appeared with a health bar: 4,000 life points.

"I want to dream." The Moon's Nightmare said. "I want to dream forever. The moon is coming down. You've noticed it too."

One of its hands raised in an instant. Palm outstretched, she fired a massive Demon Cannon. The beam was so wide that it could have hit both of them at the same time. May rolled to the right. Ed rolled under the Cannon, right up in the Nightmare's face.

He punched three times, lightning fast. Of course, the boss didn't even consider flinching. The Nightmare. It clasped both hands together. Instantly, they pulsed with demonic energy.

"Uh-oh…" Ed did a backflip. The Nightmare brought its fist down on the ground. The demonic energy made a shockwave erupt from the ground, and Ed was caught in the blast. His healthbar immediately drained to half.

"Holy fucking shit!" May cried.

Ed kept backflipping to gain distance. "Be careful. Her melee attacks have AOE!"

"Got it!"

May fired a Demon Gun at the Nightmare. She responded by jumping high into the air. May looked up to where the demon _should_ have been but didn't see her.

"Shit! Where'd she go?"

Ed looked around. His gaze stayed on a spot above May. He pointed with wide eyes. "LOOK OUT!"

May picked a direction and ran. She felt the shockwave behind her. She thought she made it out of the AOE radius but did not. May was carried off her feet and went sailing through the air.

"May!" Ed screamed.

"I'm fine!" she yelled back. _Fine _was a bit of a stretch, but she only lost a third of her lifebar, and she managed to stick the landing. "Ed, I took less damage than you! Maybe it gets weaker at the edge of the radius, or maybe the shockwave's weaker when it comes from a jump!"

"Roger that! Stay on guard!"

"Staying!"

Ed fired a Sacred Gun. Again, the Nightmare just jumped high to avoid it, this time trying to land on Ed. The AOE took him down to about 30 percent. So it was true, this particular AOE wasn't as strong as her melee attack.

Still it seemed that shooting would be the best option. The Nightmare's response with that seemed predictable. They could blast it when it landed. Much better than trying close combat and having to run _then_.

But maybe The Moon's Nightmare was just smarter than that. She changed up her tactics. Instead of trading Guns with them, she decided to dash close to them and _(God!) _was she fast. May blinked and suddenly the bitch was right on top of her.

The Nightmare did wide, sweeping, claw attacks that she could backpedal easily enough. They were so large and telegraphed you could see them coming from a different galaxy without a telescope. Then, on the final swing, the claws on the right hand charged with energy. The Nightmare jumped into the air.

"Shit." May whispered.

Instead of rolling back, she rolled forward, under the demon. Its feet hit the ground with a bang, and May heard the booming moan of yet another Demon Energy Wave being created. Everything this bitch did had an AOE at the end of it.

"Ed…" she began.

"I see it." he said. He took a drink from his health flask taking him back to full. The Nightmare turned her attention to him. Suddenly, she dashed forward, so fast it was nearly a teleport. She did a heavy shoulder tackle. Ed barely got his block up in time. The shoulder tackle instantly crushed his guard, and he was stuck in the staggered animation.

May responded with a flying kick to the back of the Nightmare's head. It ignored the hit. A large, clawed hand reached out and clutched Ed's head like a pear.

"No!" May screamed. A grab from the boss would do insane damage. She fired not one, but _two_ Demon Gun shots right after the other. They both struck home, for a whopping 500 damage. She was hoping for the attack to stagger the Nightmare. No such luck. The Nightmare spun around, swinging Ed with it. May thought briefly of Edmond swinging Eddy around in a circle.

The Nightmare let go. Ed slammed into a wall hard enough to crack it. "Oof!" The attack drained him back to 10 percent!

"Holy shit! Ed!" May charged forward and did a somersaulting double-kick, charging it with Demon Energy. The move let her kick off the final boss and gain distance. It didn't matter. The Nightmare teleported forward, gut-punching her to the floor.

"Damn it." she grunted. Down to 20 percent life now. How many healing flask charges did she have? Fuck, only _5 _left. This bitch's lifebar was still 80 percent or so. Even assuming they didn't die—which she wasn't assuming at all—this whole thing was going to take forever.

Ed waded in like Rocky. He dodged the Nightmare's swipes with boxer precision, each time striking back with a quick jab. The blows appeared to make the Nightmare hesitate a bit in her animations, but not enough for May to be certain. It was the same story anyway: the last attack of the combo was an AOE attack, this time a vertical energy wave.

Ed backpedals until he was next to May. "This isn't working too well."

"You can say that again." she said. "Any plans?"

"We could try to make it stagger, but that's just too risky in this game."

Indeed it was. The average boss in this game had more Balance than that guy from The Walk. They were hard to knock out of their animations even with concentrated energy attacks, and that was just _regular _bosses. There was even a chance that this final boss couldn't even be staggered. But it was difficult to tell stats like that without a Magic Monocle, but those items were rare indeed.

"So what _can_ we do?" May asked.

"Keep wearing it down." Ed answered.

They kept wearing it down.

[11]

They got it down to half health. They were getting more familiar with The Nightmare's attacks, which meant they were dodging better. That also meant they weren't chugging through their flasks as quickly.

But this next part would be bad. While Sacred Fist (the game) was different from RPGs in a lot of ways, one thing was certain. When the bosses got down to 50 health, they "Turned Red." They started getting new moves; much faster, more powerful moves. This wasn't any different.

A scripted animation played out, with the Nightmare stumbling about, even placing a hand on her head. Then, she stared at them, black eyes somehow expressive. She wasn't happy that they made it this far. Not at all. Glowing red veins appeared all across her body. The red dot-like pupils in her swelled and grew until they _were _her eyes.

The Moon's Nightmare stopped with the savage melee strikes. Now, she was into Demon Energy blasts and plenty of them. She threw up spinning Bola Demon Mines that they had to roll under. Ed got hit by one and went down to 30 percent health.

Finally, the Demon Tsunami Quake as it would be known as later. The Moon's Nightmare would ball up into a crouched position, jump high into the air, and come crashing down like a meteor. This made yet another kind of shockwave but with a _much _larger height. Ed was able to protect himself with a Shield, but the move sapped him of nearly _all _his Sacred Energy.

May didn't have enough Energy for any kind of anything.

She tried jumping over it. It caught her feet as it passed under, putting her back down to 10 percent health and making her spin in the air. She went directly into a wall.

"May!" Ed cried.

The Nightmare glanced at Ed before turning to May. The Nightmare raised both hands. She whispered the words "Ultimate Demon Rocket."

"No!" he screamed.

He ran towards her. She raised a feeble hand up. Because this would kill them. This would kill the both of them. The Demon Gun had AOE at this point. She wanted so badly to tell him to stop. This wouldn't help win the game. At the last second, that very problem occurred to him. May could even see his eyes bug out with new understanding. Instead of getting directly in front of her, he hooked left, toward The Nightmare.

The Demon Cannon fired, hit Ed directly in the chest. Because he moved closer to The Nightmare at the last second, the blast radius had longer to travel before it could hit her. The blast _almost_ reached her anyway, the AOE was just that big. It stopped just two feet from her fucking _toes_.

Ed was picked up off his feet and catapulted into the wall, crashing down next to May.

"Oh God, please no." May whimpered.

His life bar emptied out in a flash, all the way down from full health. A one-hit kill.

_Killed._

Her heart ached.

"No! Please, Ed!"

Ed didn't move. His mouth hung slightly open, and his blank eyes stared at the ceiling. He would start to disappear soon and her heart would go with him.

The Nightmare approached her.

"You damn coward." May said coldly. "You're just like me."

The Nightmare smiled.

"You trapped us here from the beginning." she said. "And why? Just because you felt weak in real life. You know something?"

The final boss cocked its head at her, as if asking a silent question.

May slowly stood up. "Trapping us in here with you doesn't make you strong. Trickin' people and killin' people doesn't make you strong. It makes you a pathetic little bitch. And you just killed the man I loved."

The Nightmare's grin just widened, as if the whole thing was funny.

"I'll show you what's funny, you fuckin' stupid cunt." May drank the her flask, giving her four remaining charges. She wouldn't be able to kill this final boss, and she damn well knew it. She essentially could take four more hits before dying forever.

"It doesn't matter."

No, it didn't. May couldn't kill this bitch, and knew it probably couldn't feel pain; but she could damn well fucking _try_.

Then yellow light shined off to her left.

She turned.

[12]

What she knew later, she didn't know then.

Sacred Energy wasn't just the most powerful Energy type. Demonic Energy had properties that Spirit Energy did not. The most obvious difference was the different mana attacks giving AOE. By that same token, Sacred Energy had many different properties from Demon.

For starters, the developer had always envisioned it as a kind of holy counterpoint to Demon Energy. That was why only full-humans could use it, because in this particular world, humans were the end products of formerly divine beings.

You got better defensives with Sacred Energy. A Sacred Shield was stronger than one of Spirit or Demon Energy. It also provided a certain amount of healing arts, both for the self and for a party. It allowed a Sacred Energy user to be a typical RPG cleric. However, the arts had a very long animation before they actually worked. So it was better for open warfare. It was no good for battles like this particular one, where the "cleric" was 50 percent of the attacking force.

One Sacred Energy ability that didn't need a lengthy windup time before activation…was the first one. It was called _Reawakening_. Big Ed gave it the name of a perk from Call of Duty, specifically some of the games Treyarch made (as opposed to Infinity Ward).

That name was Second Chance.

Once…and only once for the duration of the entire game, a Sacred Energy user who has their life depleted to zero is auto-rezzed about 10 seconds later. Full health, full Energy and a temporary but _massive_ buff to all their stats.

May but didn't know that then. She only knew then…what she knew then. She knew that Big Ed was standing up now. She knew that he was bathed in angelic, golden light. His eyes were white orbs. He sparkled in some places. He fucking _shined_.

_It's the White, _May thought blankly, _It's the coming again of the White._

The Moon's Nightmare looked at Ed. Now longer narrow, her eyes were as wide as dinner plates. She was awestruck. "Beautiful."

Ed was instantly in front of the final boss. May didn't even see him move. His fists were barely seen flickers of movement. They were strong hits, erasing whole chunks of the boss' life bar and making it "stagger," rocking the demon's head from side to side. He turned and did a side-kick, knocking The Nightmare backward. It fell on its ass and slid across the floor. It was down to _20 _percent life already!

May was speechless.

Ed extended a pointer finger at The Nightmare, whispered "Sacred Light Grenade."

A _hilariously_ tiny projectile left his finger, moving about as fast as a snail trapped in amber. The Nightmare responded with another Ultimate Demon Rocket.

The projectiles collided in midair—a tiny, slow-moving bullet against a massive beam. May watched as the tiny golden bullet forced back the red energy wave. It pushed it all the way back until it was about a foot away from The Nightmare, who was still trying to push it back with the Rocket attack. The Light Grenade pulsed brightly for a second. Then exploded in dazzling brightness that blinded May for a moment.

When she was finally able to open her eyes, The Moon's Nightmare was already face-down on the floor.

Already at zero health and turning to ash.

[13]

May Kanker was still in the Kanker's old trailer home—because the Synapse Gear obviously couldn't be safely moved—and still under the care of Mama Kanker. Since the incident with Karl with a "K," she had decided to ease off the boyfriends. Even still, Lee and Marie visited the place regularly. The childhood wounds were closing but not yet healed, and neither daughter fully trusted their mother yet. But that visit marked the first time in a long time, that Marie and Mama had been in the same room and not argued over something.

That day was a Saturday. Marie and Double D had just gotten done visiting with their son, Dave, who was six months old. Double D was backing the car up to turn it around when Mama Kanker came bursting out.

"MARIE!"

Marie rolled the window down, already sweating in the summer heat. "What?!"

"It's May! She's awake!"

"WHAT?!"

And before Edd even knew what the fuck, his wife was already out the shotgun seat and running to the door. Dave goggled comically from the child seat in the back. Edd sighed in relief, put the car in park, took Dave out of the backseat, and walked back into the house. It was a while before he realized there were tears in his eyes.

Three minutes before that, Rolf's doorbell rang. He opened the door without checking the peephole because he knew who would be on the other side.

"Greetings, Featherweight and She Who Gives Migraines."

"Yeah, sure." Sarah said.

"Howdy, Rolf. Good to see you." Jimmy said.

"How is he?" Sarah asked.

"Just as fine as he was last week."

They entered the house without waiting for permission. He knew them and loved them. They didn't need permission. They walked to the bedroom, leaving their bikes and helmets in the driveway.

Both of them had gone through considerable growth spurts in the past few years, similar to what Eddy had gone through at age 16. At 15, Sarah and Jimmy were both 5'7''.

"I never thanked you, Rolf." Sarah said. "You know, for all this."

"No thanks is necessary, Sarah-girl."

"I disagree." Sarah said quietly and the three of them left it at that. Because, she felt, she did owe him. His parents tried to pull the plug, before they knew the Gear was rigged. Rolf knew better and stopped them. She owed Double D, Eddy and their wives too. Lee was often deployed, but when she wasn't, she was helping both Ed and May with physical therapy. As much as she could with the Gear wrapped around them.

Marie and Sarah didn't open those respective bedrooms at the same time. That kind of shit only happened in romantic movies, usually not very good ones at that. The timing was a full two minutes apart.

Sarah opened her door first. She saw Ed sitting up in a daze. The rigged Gear that had kept him down for a full fucking year was on the bedroom.

"Dear God, I'm really hungry." he said…and then yawned. He looked worse than hungry but he was fucking alive.

Sarah's scream was heard by Rolf's parents, who were watching TV downstairs. Mama Rolf jumped about 10 feet in the air. Sarah pounced on Ed, glomped him, hugged him so hard, he thought he would snap in half.

"Hey baby sister!" Ed said hoarsely. His mouth felt like it was full of sand. "You're crushing me!"

Mama Kanker was leading everyone to the small bedroom that the three sisters had shared as kids. "I heard her voice. I swear I heard her voice."

"Okay, Mama. I believe you." Marie said.

The door was ajar. Marie went in.

The room was empty. The Synapse Gear had been thrown against the far wall and it sat there, broken.

"The fuck did she go?" Mama Kanker asked.

Then they heard running water, and went to the bathroom. May was sitting down on the toilet. She looked like a skeleton. She looked up at them, annoyed.

"Holy smokes, people. Ever heard of privacy?"

Marie and Mama Kanker stared at her. Their eyes filled up with tears.

"What?"

They pounced on her.

[14]

Six months later, they were done with hospitals and done with physical therapy. Ed visited the trailer park completely alone for the very first time in his life. Lee's pickup was in front of the home, but she and Eddy were on their way out.

"Lumpy!" Eddy cried cheerfully. Their 2-year-old daughter, Janet, held Eddy's hand. She had a mop off curly red-hair like her mom. She was skipping along beside her parents.

Eddy and Ed hugged, but Lee led her husband to the car. She whispered something to Eddy, who snickered.

Ed shrugged his shoulders, opened the door and went in. May was watching TV. She saw Ed and smiled at him. "Hey big fella."

"It's good to see you."

She stood up. "You too."

Ed was already feeling nervous. "Where's Mama Kanker?"

May took a step toward him. "She's having a girl's night out."

Ed looked at her. She was tearing a Johnny Cash T-shirt and white gym shorts. She looked really cute, with her freckles and buckteeth and slightly small boobs. She was blushing a little, making her look even cuter.

"So…" he began awkwardly. "What do you wanna do for our da—"

She kissed him gently. As passive and gentle as it was, she still felt him _almost _push her away. It was an old habit. It might die very hard indeed. But he didn't push her away in the end and that was grand. He kissed her back. That was even better. Words couldn't describe it.

They broke off the kiss. "I was really lookin' forward to that."

Ed was in a daze. "Wow…yeah, you were."

She giggled. "First kiss?"

"Yeah." Ed said, feeling a bit insecure. The first one that was actually his choice anyway.

"Don't worry about it, Big Ed." May winked at him. "Mine too. And there's something else I gotta show you."

"Oh, cool, like one of your games?" he asked.

She took him by the hand and began leading him to the bedroom.

May smiled at him. "Yeah...somethin' like that."

AN: Oh Dear God, thank God that's over! Believe me when I say I had zero intention of the story being this long when I first started it. I originally thought it was going to be just three short chapters, Bleh! Anyways, I'm happy the way this little mini-series worked out. I'm a big Ed Edd n Eddy fan and I was happy to write stories about them. While, I know not every fanfic writer or DeviantArtist like the Kankers with the Eds, I ship them.

Yes, they're bullies and assholes. But they do small things that make me genuinely think they do care for the Eds. While I used to be more EddxMarie than anything else, I can safely say that EddyxLee makes up some of the most genuinely touching fanart I've ever seen, of any story. With Ed and May, I made this SAO/LoZ/YuYu Hakusho knockoff because I thought it would take something very unusual to get him past his fear of girls. Like a deathtrap video game!

THANKS EVERYONE FOR READING!


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